Lioness Loricatus
by Dena Gray
Summary: Love can be found in the depths of his mind...2yrs P/W and Hermione's found Severus in a fake psychiatric hospital with no memory and no magic. He awakens and latches onto her as the connection to his past and his redemption. SS/HG, EWE. Mature Content.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: The title refers to Hermione, literally "Shield Lioness". That will make more sense as the story unfolds. I make no claims to these characters, I'm just taking them out of the JKR box and playing with them (as if you didn't know that by picking an HP link to read, but yeah, I have to write it) As far as I know, this will be canon, so let me explain:

a) I have a rather valid and explainable sub-plot as to why Snape, Lupin, and Tonks are alive, so bear with me.

b) ditto for the psych hospital. I have reasons for it not aligning with British health standards and government facility regulations, you just have to keep reading past ch.1 to find out ;) Again, bear with me.

c) the only deviation I plan on taking from canon is ignoring the epilogue.

So, without further ado, I present to you my version of what happens after:

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><p><span>Chapter One<span>

The tiny metal shaped negative diamonds snagged his fingertips. He slid his fingernails across the grate and they caught on the rusty flecks of paint chipping off the muggle enclosure over the too-bright window with its pedestrian anti-shatter lamination which kept him from truly seeing the world outside. No trees. No sky. No grass. Didn't they understand his need to see these things? Every day he stood at this window, his only window, staring, seeking, straining through the yellowed plastic on the other side of the iron grate that spat paint at him when he tried to pull it loose.

No wand, no magic, no mind. Just his tormented, tattered remains to circle the drain that was left of him after the snake bite.

And that was all he could remember, to his everlasting shame, frustration...anger. A snake, an evil, a battle on the edge of reason...a few passing memories of magic, twinkling eyes falling off a precipice that was somehow his doing...staring at him with forgiveness and sadness.

Green eyes with red hair that once held friendship, then loathing...

Green eyes with black hair that once held loathing, then friendship...

Brown eyes with bushy hair that fought for approval, fought betrayal, then stayed behind after the snake...but left...why?

Why were all these eyes...these specific eyes haunting him?

He rubbed his own and growled, gritted his teeth, banged his head against the iron grate in front of the poor excuse for a window in a soft tattoo that eventually brought a male nurse in to give him his medication.

He sneered. Pills, not potions. Somehow he knew the magical world had abandoned him to a muggle place. He was truly alone.

Why did this feel like the thousandth time he'd had this discussion with himself? He sighed and sat on his small, white-sheeted bed in his white standard-issue pyjamas, bracing his hands on the side with his bare feet on the floor, staring at his somewhat-kept toenails until the medication took effect. It would swim his vision, pluck his brain, and he'd lay down to forget again...but for a few more moments, he'd try to remember who he was, who they were, what had happened and how long it had been.

Before he could forget, he grabbed the crayon – a bloody child's implement! - they let him write with and the journal on the nightstand and started writing what he could. He tried to draw the eyes—apparently again—but gave up when they just looked like blobby holes on the page. His talent lay elsewhere. He gave up and stared at the blank canvas of his left forearm instead, thinking there should be something there, something dark, something sinister.

He blinked as he felt the first dizzying twist of medication shift his brain. The feeling crawled into his sinuses and made his eyes feel...heavy...

The notebook and crayon dropped to the floor as he drifted backwards, drowning into unconsciousness for another forgotten day.

/

"Hermione! We found him!"

She snapped her head up from the pile of letters she'd been poring through, trying to decipher for perhaps the thousandth time Severus Snape's correspondence in order to determine where he might have gone to hide, recover...die. She shuddered. The quick movement reminded her how long she'd been bent over the parchment sheaves in front of her—she rolled her neck in aching pain—too long. She sighed. "Ronald, not another wild goose hunt. Despite what you may think, a disappearing rodent population does not point to a 'greasy git' sighting."

She glared at him and he at least had the decency to look abashed, reddening as deeply as his maroon sweater. Honestly, when would Molly stop making that horrid shade for him?

He stuffed his hands in his pockets and jutted his chin, "No geese, no rats. Harry says it's him."

Her eyebrows snapped together and she slowly stood, steepling her fingers on the desk in the upstairs office at Number 12, which had continued as the Order's headquarters after the war in an effort to find all those who had been lost or damaged during battle so they could be brought home, hopefully returned to normal...or as normal as could be expected. For the most part, they'd been rather successful. Only a handful remained to be found after searching for two years: a few Ministry officials, two students that had suspiciously disappeared before the Battle of Hogwarts, and Severus Snape.

Hermione took his disappearance very personally as she was the last person to see him alive. Well, somewhat. Dammit, if only she'd stayed with him!

"Hermione?"

She blinked. Now was not the time for recriminations. "Where?" Was that her voice? So low, so shaky?

No wonder Ronald was looking at her strangely. "There's a muggle psycho house down in Bath. Fella's been there recovering from amnesia and a nasty snake bite to the neck for two years, nattering on about magic and wizards and such. No names, though. Records say he can't remember a thing past being bitten. They say he was driven crazy by the bite."

She held herself hard, still, rigid through the description, feeling pinpricks of rightness, of reality searing her skin and eating away at her sense. She wanted to Apparate there IMMEDIATELY. She asked him in a low voice instead, "Has anyone been sent to confirm?"

He shook his head. "We all know how you feel about this one. Harry and Remus and I thought you should go this time."

Did her face show her panic? It finally hit her what Ronald had said. "He's been in a LOONY BIN!"

His blue eyes grew exponentially bigger as she flew around the desk and advanced upon him. His hands warded between them, "'Mione, now, you heard me say that before. What's going on?"

He wouldn't let her pass. She shifted left, he did the same. Right. "Ronald Weasley, you can let me out of this room so I can prepare to retrieve him this bloody instant!"

"Not until you tell me what got your knickers in a twist!"

His hands were on her shoulders, holding her still, keeping her from proceeding. "Let me go."

"Tell me what the hell is wrong with you."

No way around it, so she'd better spell it out perfectly: "Our esteemed professor has been at the mercy of a MUGGLE psychiatric ward for two years. That means medication the likes of which his body will have never had the chance to know before and will have a very, very difficult time to get rid of every time they dose him. This would be fine if he were a muggle, Ronald, but for a wizard, it's like cutting off his hands. He'll not have had his magic this entire time! Can you imagine the backlash that will happen when he does get his magic back?"

He looked scared, mortified...good. "Maybe we should leave him there, then."

Her mouth dropped, then she felt intensity...exactly what, she knew not, but her face narrowed and she hissed, "Don't you even bloody dare think about it! We've found him, he's a fucking HERO, for God's sake!"

He stepped back, releasing her, hands up in cessation. "Okay, okay, don't get so bloody Scary-Mary! Shite!"

She drew herself up, chin out, took a deep breath and strode out the room, thinking furiously about what she'd need to take with her and the best method to get him released. Brass, Brains, or Breakout?

Maybe it would be best to just wait and assess when she got there.

/

Hermione fingered the worn parchment in her hand, running the pad of her right index finger over his signature. Could Ronald read just how involved she'd gotten in the search for Severus? As if perusing his personal effects weren't revealing enough, his missives had driven her neatly round the bend. Somewhere near the four hundred and fifty-ninth time she had re-read a very poignant letter between him and Albus Dumbledore – the last one between them – she'd finally accepted she'd fallen in love with the shadow of a man. She knew the stupidity of such an act! She! Hermione Granger, who knew IT ALL! She knew the fallacy of falling in love with a letter, a pedestal, a picture.

She was terrified of meeting the reality of the broken man. He couldn't possibly live up to her expectations...especially not now. Somewhere in the deceptively urbane building at the end of the drive the taxi just turned down was the man she'd been hunting for, but was it him? Was it truly him, or was it just his broken shell? Might it even be some cosmically impossible coincidence?

The taxi dropped her off under the bright green cloth canopy extending from an austere glass entry. The building was a nondescript yellow brick in the middle of a large property with nothing to recommend it but severely manicured lawns. She couldn't even hear birds nearby. How depressing. No flowers, no fountains, no benches or paths or gardens...wasn't this a place to soothe the mind? She'd never understand some people's concept of mental clarity. She shook her head and tucked her hands into her peacoat pockets, reassuringly grasping her wand hidden there as she entered the building through the automatic sliding glass doors.

The tight-lipped woman sitting at the desk before her stared over her reading glasses for a moment before asking in a spitting tone, "Do you have an appointment?"

Hermione stared back, not sure what to say. Perhaps the truth, laced with whatever was necessary? "No, but I-"

"Then you can leave and come back when you do."

"Now wait a minute. You have someone here I've been looking for."

"Tell it to someone who hasn't heard that before."

Shite. Time to play the trump already. "My sources say my uncle showed up here about two years ago with a nasty snake bite on his neck. Won't shut up about magic."

That got her attention. She sat and stared stonily for a moment before picking up her phone, hitting one button and waiting. "Get Mr. Hestry. I've got someone up here claiming to be related to our Mr. Smith."

Mr. Smith, eh? Hmm. Now, the hard part in this farce would be to get him out of here and find a way to pay them for two years of their care. The Order had a discretionary fund, but even it only ran so deep...she watched a nice looking man in his late thirties, with dark blond hair and watery blue eyes stride up to her in a wool suit and extend his hand with a smile. "You claim our Mr. Smith?"

She took his hand carefully. "I'm not sure. I'd like to meet him, first. I've been on a few goose chases over the past two years looking for him and I'd hate to be disappointed again."

He nodded, "Understandable, perfectly. Well, sign in and follow me."

Her eyes flared. This was working? She signed the ledger as Jean Granger and glanced at the receptionist, but she was back at her paperwork already. Hermione followed the taller man down the blindingly white corridor, past steel doors with steel sliding windows and barricaded entry points that he had to use keys and cards to get them through. Would 'Alohomora' work on a carded lock? Interesting thought. She brushed it off at the providence that she had been able to get this far with no problem. At last, they reached the last door in the last corridor in the darkest reaches of the hospital. She shivered. It was freezing, and she was wearing layers and a coat! What was Severus wearing?

Her guide, Mr. Hestry, hesitated before reaching to the sliding window at eye level on the door. "We had to drug him earlier today, so I'm afraid he's asleep."

He seemed to want some sort of acknowledgment from her. She blinked and nodded, then looked to the tiny window, willing it to open but daring not to use magic in such a place. He slid the bolt free and opened the small window lid. She glanced at him first, he angled his head at the opening and she stepped up to it, having to lift onto the toes of her trainers to see in. She gasped. "Severus!"

"It's him? You're sure?" God, he sounded positively greedy.

She felt her face scrunch up in pain as she took in the wasted form of the once-force-of-nature that lay on the bed in the cell on the other side of the door between them. She heaved a quiet sob, just barely keeping herself from breaking into tears. His hair was shorn and like Samson, it made him seem weak. The white hospital pyjamas they dressed him in made him look so anemic...he WAS anemic. There was so little left of the Potions Master, the War Hero, the Spy Inveterate that she once knew. Was he still there? "Why did you have to drug him?" she whispered.

"I can't discuss that unless you can positively claim him. I must warn you that involves discussion of a financial obligation as well."

She blinked back tears as much as she could, but it was a useless fight. It was actually decent of him to warn her of that before she claimed him. There were probably people in this world that would turn their backs on such a burden, unable to handle any of it. Tears of relief flowed unchecked down her face as she dropped flat to her feet and faced Mr. Hestry and nodded. "I claim him."

He smiled and held out his hand back towards the way they came. "Excellent. Let's go back to my office and we'll discuss his situation."

She nodded and followed him through the meandering warrens to the warm den of his office. It reminded her of her office back at Number 12, books and leather and wood. She sat gingerly on the edge of a piece of buttoned leather upholstery and waited for him to sit. "I want to take him home."

He'd stopped before leaning all the way back in his seat to take in what she said and now took the opportunity to do so. "Ah." He steepled his fingers before his face, elbows on the armrests of his chair as he looked her over. "He's been here under our ministrations for quite some time. The County mandated it when he was deemed unsafe to the public, you see."

She drew her shoulders back and pulled on what Ronald started calling her Scary-Mary act. "I am fully aware of my uncle's need for protection and can give him such at home. Our separation was caused by an interfering individual who felt this world would be better off without him and so took it upon himself to attack my uncle. We have since relocated to a higher security location and dealt with that person to the highest order of the law and _I want to take my uncle home_." There. That should do it. And if she had to call Severus her 'uncle' one more pervvy time, she was going to be sick.

Mr. Hestry seemed to be debating something within himself. "You asked why we had to medicate him. He's been ranting about fantasy creatures, magic, then he talks about eyes staring at him. He tries to hurt himself after that, Miss...I'm sorry, I don't even know your name!" He turned on the smile. She knew then the smile was phony, used to get his way when he was uncomfortable. Hmph. Two could play at that.

She turned on her dimples and tilted her head a bit, "Call me Jean. Please." It wasn't a lie. It just wasn't what everyone else called her.

"Jean. Lovely. You must call me Stan."

"Thank you, Stan." Blink, blink, tilt forward.

He cleared his throat. Good. "We use medication to keep him from hurting himself, Jean."

"Oh, of course, Stan. I'm sure you can refer me to a doctor in Edinburgh where I can get a prescription?" Slide her hand up and toy with the zipper of her hoodie...

He stared at her fingers and the zipper as it dropped an inch. "Delighted to."

"Excellent! Now, about releasing him?"

He blinked and shifted in his seat as she slid her hand over her own thigh. "Th-there is the matter of financial obligation. He's been a ward of the county for two years and as such, you claiming him makes you responsible for his treatment."

"Ah. That is understandable, but how much are we discussing?"

He mentioned a large amount of pound notes that would mean she would not be going to University on the Order's knut, that was certain. She sighed. It was worth it to have him back, though. Hestry watched her until she sadly nodded. "When do you need it by?"

"I can't release him until the bill is paid."

She nodded and stood. "Will you walk me out, Stan? I'll see you tomorrow after I make the necessary arrangements." No need to look suspicious. No muggle could arrange that amount of money this late in the day.

"Pleasure. Shall I call you a taxi?"

"Please."

They chatted about the weather until the cab arrived and Hermione gave him directions to a pub with a hostel in the middle of town. She walked to the back alley, cast a Concealment Charm and Apparated back to Grimmauld Place, releasing the Charm as she watched Number 12 crawl into place before her eyes. She slipped in the front door and thought she'd make it to the stairs, but a voice stopped her as she passed the kitchen hallway.

"Hermione? Why are you alone? Wasn't it him?"

She closed her eyes to numb herself against the onslaught of what she needed to ask, then bullied herself into getting it over with now instead of later. They probably wouldn't object to paying for his release, anyway. She turned around to face Remus. "Hi, yes, it was him." She swallowed. "I have to pay his institution fees. It was too late in the day for a muggle to acquire that kind of money-"

He sucked in his breath, "How much?"

She mumbled it quickly, hoping he'd hear it...or not...

"What!"

Blasted werewolf hearing.

"Forty thousand pounds? Are you serious, Hermione?"

His outburst did something to her that she'd been protecting herself from all day. Something broke, just broke and she felt her chest heaving up and down, searching for air and her face going red and splotchy and she felt the water racing to her face into her tear ducts and nostrils and she just couldn't hold it back anymore. "I know! I know! I'll pay it back, I promise, but we have to do this, Remus! He's sick and it's horrible in there! I have to get him out and it's not fair for us to break in and just take him when they've been taking care of him for two years and I'll pay it back, promise, I promise, I pro-mi-se..." She slid down the newel post of the stair onto the bottom step and sobbed into her hands, rocking back and forth, feeling the hot tears smearing between her fingers and not caring that she must look absolutely horrid and that she was sent on a mission and it felt like she FAILED.

She had to get him back!

She jumped when she felt a hand brushing her shoulder blade. "Shh, shh, love, don't cry, don't cry, it's just a big number, of course we have to get him back. We'll pay it, there's no question, dearest. Do you need me and Dora to go with you tomorrow?"

She thought about it as she calmed. It was really tempting, but for some reason, she felt she needed to do this alone. She shook her head in the negative and sniffled behind her hands, then rubbed her nose on her sleeve. Remus handed her a handkerchief. "Thank you."

He slipped an arm around her shoulders and hugged her sideways. She dropped her head to his shoulder and sighed. "He looks awful."

"We'll fix him up."

"They say he tries to hurt himself."

"We'll fix that, too."

"Can magic fix a broken mind, Remus?"

He seemed to think about that. "We'll see, won't we?"

"Is it right?"

After a pause, he answered her, "Tell me this. Is it wrong to have the tools and the ability to fix him and let him languish broken? Is it truly better to leave him be?"

"Is it better for him or for us?"

"I say we ask him."

"What if he can't answer?"

"What if he can?"

"What if we fix him but he's not the same?"

"We're never the same, Hermione."

She sighed and hiccupped against his arm.

"Let's just get him home first, eh? Then we'll go from there."

"Okay."

He gave her a squeeze and sent her off to bed. It was where she wanted to go when she got there, but now that she'd achieved what she thought she wanted, it felt strange to be alone. The boys were apparently out searching for clues to one of the Ministry officials in France, so it was just Hermione, Remus, Tonks, and Kreacher. She stared at the four walls of her bedroom at Number 12, yearning for her old bedroom and her parents for the millionth time since she'd Obliviated them so long ago. Lord, but she missed them! She sniffled again and fell backwards across her bed, remembering with agonizing clarity that this was a very similar position to Severus' at the hospital. She spent the rest of the night between crying into her pillow and waking from a nightmare involving Severus blaming her for his imprisonment as soon as he awakened from his drugged stupor.

She had to get him back. She just HAD to!

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><p>AN: Well, let me know what you think! I've got more coming, but reviews feed the muse!


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: I've tried to cover as many logic loopholes as possible, so please, bear with me if anything needs a bit of reality suspension. Hold faith, I have a few ideas for resolving that. ;) Other than that, thank you for the great response so far and I hope you enjoy. Of course, I own nothing, just play with the toys made possible by JKR/HP.

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><p>She watched dawn crackle over the horizon and dance from rooftop to rooftop across town, chasing the birds from their roosts to find their breakfast. It was almost a normal morning except for the deafening anticipation that had her hands gripping the window moulding tightly in her bedroom. She glanced at the muggle grandmother clock ticking, ticking, ticking away the seconds in agonizing, dragging slowness. In about an hour she would be able to Apparate to Gringotts and transfer the funds from their discretionary to what approximated a cashier's check in the muggle world.<p>

Her stomach churned and she could not determine if it was ill or hungry. Better to err on the side of reason and not eat. The clock struck the top of the hour and chimed seven times into the room. She closed her eyes against the insistent urge to silence the clock so it wouldn't make this waiting feel so much worse.

Dammit, this watching and waiting was shredding her nerves and that damned clock wasn't helping.

She took a steadying breath and tried to think of something to occupy herself. There was an hour left. What could she do?

Well, there was the fact that she needed to get dressed. It wouldn't hurt to look her most professional for the goblins. Or for Severus.

Right.

She carefully dressed in a black suit with a pewter silk blouse and matching gray slingback shoes, deliberately taking her time with the application of each layer. Next, came the gray pearls that she'd lifted from her mother before leaving home. She looked in the quiet mirror to check her reflection, wishing she had more of her mother to comfort her than a pair of baubles and a few trinkets, but...

No room to worry about that now. Right now was the time to think about Severus.

Looking for something else to do to pass the time, she went downstairs into the hall closet and gathered a small duffel bag, filled it with a man's clothing that looked about the right size for Severus (they'd always kept things like that there just in case) and tried to think of anything else she might need. What if he got violent? What if he tried to hurt himself before they got home? What if he didn't want to go with her? What if he didn't recognize her? Oh, it was no use going over these questions again and again, she'd already exhausted the list of unanswerable questions since she swore not to go back to sleep at four o'clock in the morning. She might just have to use silent magic and risk Hestry seeing anything. She'd better wear her coat again and hide her wand.

This would just have to work. She'd find a way to bloody well make it work. She owed it to Severus and to everything he'd ever stood for. At that, she huffed, shook her head and paced out of Number 12, determined to walk off some of her nervous energy on her way to Diagon Alley.

The walk served to distract her, directing her mind—well, not off of Severus—but at least onto something else as well. Eyelop's was a pleasant diversion with the owls fluttering in the window and Madam Malkins showed off the season's newest robes. She shook her head. Some wizarding fashions would never take with her.

A few more steps took her even with the former Ollivander's. She slowed, considerate of the darkened shop. People still kept a few paces away, slowing and staring, just as she did, out of respect.

It still pained her to know there were some war victims they couldn't bring back.

She quickened her pace and came to the 'Y' shaped intersection that marked the wizarding bank's corner, automatically counting the marble steps – twenty three – as she jogged upwards to the large golden doors, her shoes clacking against the stone.

A hand came across her vision, then a body and she let out a small shriek before backing up and recognizing her interloper. "Oh, God, Remus, you scared the living daylights out of me!"

He smiled sheepishly and apologized. "Sorry, but I've been trying to catch up to you. Where've you been?"

She ignored the question as concern struck home. "What's wrong? Did something happen?" So many things rushed across her mind, Harry or Ronald or Tonks or someone they'd missed in their research or worse, someone they'd found but couldn't retrieve...or, God, what if she was too late and something had happened to Severus...

He waved the air in dismissal, "Nothing dire, but just as important. Dora brought up a good point last night and I wanted to catch you before you went through the transaction."

She blinked. What did she miss? Was she too stuck on retrieving Severus that she'd blinded herself to something? "What. What is it?"

They shifted to the side as a group of wizards glared at them for taking up the middle of the walkway, settling into the shadows of a lamp post in the early morning light. "A place like that's got to operate like us and pay their bills as they go, not after all's said and done. She thinks that someone's already paid his bill, or even that it might be a government facility. We most likely owe the money to them or the taxpayers, but not directly to the hospital." Remus dipped his head, waiting in his teacher's stance for her to reach the next conclusion.

What? No wonder it had been so easy...Stan had been so obliging...

Now that she thought about it, the place was rather more secure than what it needed to be. If that was true, then Remus and Tonks were right and Stan was doing nothing more than—

She felt her face twist in rage. "No! That little mangy bastard was trying to bleed me!" Anger coursed through her veins and rippled down her spine as she thought through the different ways she was going to handle Hestry now. "That...that CUR! He was just taking _advantage_ of me!" At Remus' reluctant nod, a slightly feral grin twisted the right side of her mouth as she focused back on her former teacher.

"We need to do some research, prove what kind of place this is before we go rushing in and taking Severus out from underneath them."

Remus smiled a predatory smile that showed Hermione he approved her thought process so far. "I believe I remember the way to the public library, my dear." He rakishly offered her his arm, she grinned up at him and they Apparated to the park at St. James Square.

/

She took a deep, calming breath of the dusty tomes surrounding her. No matter what the situation, books were home to her. The London Library might not have the same collection as Hogwarts (honestly, what library _did_?) but it _was_ one of the largest muggle collections and she was very content here.

Acquiring access to one of the computers, Hermione searched local records for the address she knew in Bath to obtain the official hospital name.

It was worse than they suspected. Not only was there no record of a mental institution at that address, but there was no record of any government, civil, or public facility...no record of any hospital, public or private, either. The only listing for that address was a lease agreement between a Quincy Chalmers, Lord A— and Mr. Stanley Hestry, PhD.

"Now that's interesting."

"You don't say." She glanced at Remus and had a thought, but started typing before voicing it. The next page came up...she skimmed for the best information..."Aha!" She clicked on the obituary. "Lord A— passed away several years ago. We didn't see any renewals under another title, did we?"

Remus leaned forward with a smirk, but glanced over to the screen. "Better check, just to be sure."

She smiled back and spent a few fruitless clicks searching for lease agreements. The assistant at the desk wasn't able to help them much more than that, reminding them that such information could be private if the individuals wished it.

Hermione huffed her frustration, but Remus patted her on the shoulder. "Remember that we've found out it's a fraud, regardless. It doesn't matter about the lease agreement so much that we know this Hestry fellow isn't running a legal mental hospital. My guess is he's also fleecing the local public, as well, and it would certainly be our duty to inform the local magistrate."

Sometimes she wondered if he was more wolf or man, with some of his grins...

A dark doubt flit across the surface of her thoughts, "What if the magistrate's in on it?"

He grimaced, "I highly doubt it, but that can be fixed with a quick bit of wand-work."

She arched a brow at him, "That's illegal, Remus."

"So's operating a mental hospital without a license, Hermione."

Conceding that point, she nodded and tilted her head at a slight angle, "In that case, would you mind coming with me, then? I might need your help after all." She pulled out a piece of paper from the printer nearby and neatly folded it in triple, lengthwise, then in half and tucked it in her jacket pocket.

He returned a wolfish grin, "I thought you'd never ask, my dear."

They left the library, entered a lush, overgrown area of the park in St. James Square and Apparated to the alley behind the hostel in Bath. As soon as they ensured the area was clear, she took out the folded paper from her pocket and her wand, thought for a moment, then transfigured the page into a convincing replication of a banker's check.

Remus arched a brow at the paper. She grinned up at him and replied, "Extra leverage. Just in case."

He smiled, shook his head and stepped out from the alleyway to the street. She laughed as he tried to whistle weakly, then stepped up neatly beside him and pierced the air between two fingers.

The same cab driver from yesterday pulled up alongside her. He hung his elbow out his window and smiled. "Oh, 'ello, luv! 'eadin' back to Tinnet 'all?"

She blinked at the unfamiliar place-name. "Pardon?" In all their research, the actual family name of the property had never come up.

He smiled still, patiently. "De loonie bin, luv?"

She smiled back. "Yes! Yes, that's where we're going."

"Right-o! Climb in an' we'll be on ah way." He thumbed to the back door and Remus opened it for her.

As soon as he slid in after her and they started on their way, Remus asked the cabbie, "So tell me about Tinnet Hall."

"Eh?"

"What do the locals think about it?"

"Er...necessary." When his passengers looked like they wanted him to continue, he did, "We fink it's necessary for dem poor crazy crim'nals t'ave sommut place ta go, right?"

Hermione spluttered, but Remus placed a hand on her arm to keep her silent. The cabbie continued, "Da more I fink on it, da more I don' mind payin' a special collection fer da upkeep. It's kinda like I'm payin' ta keep em away from me famly..." He blinked and looked a bit redder in the face into the rear view mirror to his passengers. "Sorry."

Remus held up a hand. "No, no. We understand. We're actually here to take one of those burdens off your community, though, and move him up north."

"Really?" There was a large lacing of skepticism in the driver's tone.

Hermione looked his reflection dead in the eye and said, "He's _our _family."

She turned her tear-bright gaze out the window to watch the sunlight glint off the glass windows of cars and buildings as they passed by. How could she have been so stupid? So blind? Severus was being held in a fraud's _prison_ and the warden played her grief like a violin, extracting a promise for money that she should have known was heinously false. What made her angrier was that Severus was being treated as a public criminal. A _criminal_! He was a bloody HERO! A ball of tight pain wedged in her throat as she tried her damnedest to hold back tears, gritting her teeth, knowing what her parents would say to do so. God, such injustice...how the bloody hell did he get to this place?

Remus continued his conversation with the cabbie, "What kind of collection?"

"Eh?"

"You said there's a special collection for the upkeep of Tinnet Hall."

"Ah." The driver smiled as if about to impart deep gossip, "Well, now dat was of high debate fer years amongst de townsfolk, but da county commish'ner's all o'er 'bout how we're safe an' such...safer dan ot'er places," he broke off to laugh as if it was all a joke. "I hear dey do sirens in ot'er towns like dat Broadmoor up-country, but dey don't do it here." He snorted. "Safe. Ah, well. We've not had a breakout, so I guess we are."

"Do you know anything about the inmates?"

"Who, me?" The cabbie blinked into the rear-view mirror. "Not a fing. No one does. Dey go in, but dey don't come out...'cept I guess yer fella. An' yer de first visitors I've seen in all me years as cabbie, too."

Remus reached over to Hermione with a hand on hers, his face showing concern, resolve, questions...she lifted her chin a bit, breathed steadily through her nose, then lifted it a bit higher and exhaled, holding his gaze. He patted her hand. This was a much deeper puzzle than they could possibly hope to solve today.

"Al'right, 'ere we are. Tinnet 'all in all its gloomy glory."

As Harry would say, it was time to put their game faces on. She took a deep breath and stepped out of the car, pressing the door closed behind her as she stared at the building that had held Severus for two years. Today he was coming home, one way or another.

"Oi!"

She turned around to see Remus paying the cabbie, but the driver was looking at her.

"Ya need a ride back inta town? Wif yer...famly?"

Her heart tripped a bit. That was kind of him to offer in the face of their difficult conversation only a few minutes ago. She glanced at Remus, but he merely watched her for a decision. Looking back at the driver, she shook her head in the negative. "I thank you for your kindness, but I don't know now long we'll be. We'll be sure to call if we do need you, though."

There. That would give them some wriggling room just in case they needed to Apparate directly out of the prison, but left them with a muggle option if they needed it. He nodded and drove off with a wave and a well-wish.

Remus walked to her side. "Well, that was certainly enlightening."

She shivered. "Fraud, embezzlement, and involving a public official? I don't know about you, but I'm feeling a bit over my head."

He scoffed. "Come now. We defeated Voldemort. What could he possibly do to us?"

That sounded suspiciously like an ominous foreshadowing, if she'd not hated Divination so much. She chose the more logical route. "Easy, Remus, you're the one who taught me 'pride goeth before the fall'."

"True." He looked up at the austere yellow brick building with its green awning flapping in the morning breeze. "Shall we?"

In answer, she nodded and dropped her fingers into her jacket pocket to ensure the 'check' was still there. Satisfied, she straightened her shoulders, lifted her chin and strode through the glass doors, straight to the reception desk.

The sour receptionist was not there. "Hello?" Her voice echoed across the high, empty foyer.

A door opened down the hall and the tight-rolled blonde head of the woman from yesterday popped out in confusion, then surprise, then just as quickly disappeared. Hermione had just turned to Remus to exchange a commiserating glance of 'well-that-was-strange' when the door opened again and the woman marched out to her desk.

"Didn't expect you here so early. Hang on." She picked up the phone and pressed the button. "Get Mr. Hestry. The lady is here for Mr. Smith. Yes, already. And she's got someone with her." There was a pause and her face twisted in annoyance. "I don't know, that, now do I?" She hung up the phone and said nothing to them, busying herself at her desk shuffling paperwork.

Just to see what would happen, Hermione started tapping the toe of her shoe just to be irritating. As soon as the receptionist seemed about to say something, Hestry arrived.

"Jean, how nice to see you...so early." He looked Remus over with a strange expression...somehow wary and disdainful. "And you've brought someone with you, I see?" Who was he to disapprove of Remus?

She glanced between them and redirected Hestry's attention to her, using his given name to remind him of their 'flirting' yesterday. "Stan." She dimpled and they shook hands as she purposely didn't introduce her associate. "I was able to cut a few strings. I want my uncle home. We've missed him terribly as I'm sure you understand."

He smiled that phony smile. "Yes. About that. Um...let's step into my office."

What did he want now? She followed him with an arched brow and and unpleasant look, but followed. "I came here to collect my uncle. We discussed this yesterday."

He closed the door, motioned for her to sit and did so himself, watching Remus out of the corner of his eye. "Yes, well, when I went to complete the paperwork, I realized we have to file his public identity, which you have not yet provided. I can't just release him to _anyone_, either. I need proof of your relation."

The greed in his eyes reminded her of the smarmy men she avoided at Ministry functions. Ugh. "You've been treating him for two years under a pseudonym."

His eyes hooded, concealing something. Hermione gritted her teeth and swallowed to keep from regurgitating. "Yes, the county has been most gracious."

"You've been giving him medication under that name as well."

"We have."

She watched his calm facade, knowing it was all a game to him. God, how did he even face a mirror? He had no compunction preying on people's misfortunes. "Then you can sign him out under that same pseudonym. The county needs nothing else from you, as that's how they have him listed."

His jaw worked in a few angles before he answered, "Surely you don't mean to suggest I should allow you to remove a person who apparently has need of mental rehabilitation, without full registration of who he is or where he is going?"

"He is fully registered. At home. You have no need of that information."

"On the contrary. I have paperwork to file with the county and state." Oh he was good.

But she was pissed. She dropped her voice to a low growl between gritted teeth. "_Bollocks_."

Remus exclaimed behind her, placed a hand on her chair, "He—_Jean_."

She ignored his warning and continued, staring Hestry down. "If you had paperwork to file with the county and state, you wouldn't need forty thousand pounds to release him. It would be paid for by government taxes and _you_ wouldn't need the money, the government would." There. Let him believe they were buying his silence.

Hestry chewed on that for a bit, then grimaced in a tight smile. "You have the tuition?"

She dimpled at him and pulled the check from her pocket to wave at him. He made to reach for it, but she snatched it back. "No, sir, I believe we'll be making this transaction with a receipt. After I have my uncle." She glanced at Remus and hoped he'd go along with her ruse for a bit. They needed to get to Severus before playing their last card.

"It looks like a banker's check."

"It is."

"It's a receipt in and of itself."

"Regardless."

They stared at each other for a few moments until he smiled a bit more comfortably. "Let's go check on our patient, shall we?"

She dimpled again, but with a bit more steel. "Let's."

/

It was nice to take a swim. The cool, black water sluiced over his skin and swallowed his body as it sliced through the depths unseen. He surfaced and dipped back with a flick of legs to float his hair off his face, then brushed the water away and floated backwards along the round, dark, murky pond. It was so peaceful here. Quiet. Safe. Birch trees caught in permanent autumn surrounded the pool in a fury of golden leaves and silver bark, thin striplings fighting their way up from the shore. Their leaves floated down from the amber canopy above and landed in the dark water to float with him in the never-ending circle around the center island. He looked at the island. It always took him back to the unhappy place, but he always needed to go, nonetheless. It called to him, some part of him that needed to know what lay beyond the branches of the single, dead tree that inhabited the small grassy knoll of an island in the heart of the dark pond.

He floated near the shallows of the opposite shore. It was nearly time. His feet drug against the bottom of the pond, hitting smooth sand and he sighed, looking toward the glimmering light that signaled his time to face the tree. He sat up in the shallows, resting his arms on his knees and enjoying the rivulets of water cooling on his skin.

Tinkling laughter haunted his ears as paper cut-out negatives of fairies flew by in a cloud and spun across his vision before dancing into the birch trees, playing with the bright leaves and leaving a descending trail in their wake. He wanted to fly with them, but the tree...it beckoned. He stood up. The eyes were already there, in the topmost branches of the tree, multicolored gems blinking at him, calling to him. He looked to his bare feet on the sandy shore and watched a stone float to the surface of the pool.

As soon as both feet were well set on the stone just big enough for him, it slipped across the pool to the knoll. Experience had taught him that it would soon fall away if he didn't step off, so he moved to the shore and looked up at the smooth, gray, dead limbs of the oak tree stretching above him. The eyes watched. Something tickled his feet and he looked down. The grass was reaching for him, growing over his toes. He stepped aside, but it started again. He stepped up on the tree roots to avoid the grass but it simply kept growing taller, after him. His heart sped up as he realized he needed to climb the tree, climb into the eyes, into the faceted light.

He knew it would take him away from his safe place, but his safe place was kicking him out. It wasn't fair! A vine caressed his ankle. Perhaps if the greenery overtook him, he could stay here forever...

"_Severus..."_

Light pulsed around him, the fairies danced madly in their paper cut-out impossibility, laughing raucously. His heart! It hurt to beat that much! What was that word that it held so much power over him? He looked to the eyes...were the brown ones getting closer? He quailed, raising his hand against them.

"Severus, it's all right, we're taking you home."

He blinked, the multicolored, faceted light getting too bright for his eyes to handle. Brown eyes! Brown eyes! The safe place melted away in a fog to a bright white room in the middle of a muggle-made hell and the brown eyes were there! There! His jaw worked, up and down, up and down...his hand dropped, he felt tears at the corners of his eyes as he stared from one dark orb to the other in horror, in dismay, in hope... "Are you real?"

The brown eyes had a nose, brows, lips, cheeks...tears...a smile. "Yes! Yes, I'm real and I'm taking you home. Away from here." She was clutching his forearm in her hands, sitting beside him on the small bed. He became dimly aware of two others in the room, but they didn't have the recognition she did. She was a key. She was going to help him. He closed his eyes.

Finally.

She spoke again, "God, you're nothing but bones." Her fingers skimmed the back of his hand and he opened his eyes to look at her. Would she reject him for that?

She was looking at the warden. "What have you been doing to him?"

He smiled his distasteful smile. "A side effect of the medication, I'm afraid. Nothing...illegal, I assure you."

She seemed to dismiss his remark and turned back, "Can you sit up? I want to get you dressed so we can leave." Her tone was gentle, as was her expression, but the thought of getting...dressed? Wasn't he dressed? No, he supposed he wasn't, was he?

He sat up slowly and she stood to let him slip his feet to the icy floor he'd long since gotten used to.

The warden spoke up, "I'm afraid the clothing is property of the hospital-"

Brown Eyes turned on him quicker than he had time to think, "You're extorting forty thousand pounds from us and you're going to deny him a pair of cotton pyjamas? You're lower than dirt on a rat!"

The man's face went puce. "How dare you!"

"I only state the truth! This is supposed to be a tax-paid facility, you cheat, and Mr. 'Smith' here has had his bill taken care of by the public. You'll not be getting any money from me! You'll be lucky if I don't report you to the authorities for what I'm finding here!"

The man that came with her tried to placate, "Hermione-"

"No! Don't you see what he's done? He's bleeding this poor town and anyone that gets near him. I doubt there are any real patients in this place, just unsuspecting people subject to his 'special care' when they're just trying deal with him suppressing their magic-"

"Hermione!" The man's hiss in warning reminded him of something...

Hestry recovered from his blustering defense, seeing the opportunity she'd given him, too late for her to recant. He sneered and slammed the steel door shut. "I see that this sort of thing runs in the family..._Jean_." Hestry glanced at the other man's cane and pulled a syringe out of his breast pocket, uncapping it as he sidled closer to Brown Eyes. "I think we need to re-sort the purpose of your visit. Perhaps an extended stay is in order?"

She looked to the other man and said "Stupefy?" by way of confirmation.

He replied with a nod, "And Obliviate, I think."

"Which would you rather?"

"Unfortunately, my dear, you've proven better at Memory Charms." He shrugged. "I'm sorry, but there it is."

She nodded grimly.

Why did this conversation make sense to him?

The warden snapped at them, "You're sick, all of you! Just shut up with all this nonsense!"

The man that came with Brown Eyes smiled a dark, dark smile. "Oh, I think you'll be the one shutting up..._Stupefy!_" A jet of red light shot out of a stick in his hand and the warden fell to the ground in a limp heap.

Brown Eyes pulled something out of a bag and draped it over his shoulders as he stared in shock from the wand in the new man's hand to the warden on the floor.

He whispered, "I'm not crazy." He looked from the wand to Brown Eyes and back. "It's real. I'm not crazy."

She stopped trying to shove his arms in the coat's arm holes and knelt before him with her hands on his knees. "No. No you're not. Severus, I'm real, Remus is real, and we're going home. I'm so sorry we couldn't find you sooner."

Tears. More tears. For him?

Severus. His name?

"My n-name? Severus. Is that my name?"

Her mouth formed a little 'o', shut, wibbled and those eyes of hers closed. He watched her until she inhaled and opened her eyes again, then stood up, pulling him with her. She held his hands in hers between them.

It felt odd to hold someone's hands after so long.

Her grip tightened. "We'll get into all the details later, but yes, your name is Severus. Do you remember about magic?"

He looked at the men in the room, one down, one up. He nodded.

"Okay. Good. I'm going to fix Hestry's memory so he doesn't know too much and then we're going to get out of here. Do you trust me?"

He looked back to her eyes. One of the four pairs he'd remembered for so long. "Yes."

She smiled, squeezed his hands and left him to attend the heap on the floor. After a few words, a few jets of light from her wand, she stood up and walked over to the other man she called Remus.

"He's going to think we left the check in his office and can't find it, and that we left before he came back and fell. We only have another few seconds to Apparate before he wakes up, so let's go."

The man named Remus helped him with his coat and asked Brown Eyes, "Number 12?"

"I think so. The park across the way?"

He nodded and with a _crack_ of sound and air, disappeared. She turned to him. "Okay, our turn. We need to hurry! Trust me?"

This was so much to take in! He was breathless with shock, but knew the situation needed reaction. He latched onto her arms instinctively and felt a nauseating compression from all sides, inside and out. When it finally released, there was a clumsy moment when he nearly tripped onto Brown Eyes, but instead, he fell to his hands and knees onto...

Onto...

"Oh, _gods_!" With a shuddering moan, he delved his fingers between the blades of grass and relished their photosynthetic energy, the delicate root system crazing out in every direction beneath his palms. He sobbed air, fresh crisp air into his lungs and knelt his face to the ground, burying it into the loam, scrubbing the sweet smelling plant into his pores so he would never forget the scent again! His toes curled into it and he pushed himself completely flat to the ground, hugging the earth as a long lost brother.

An unfamiliar, and yet once-known sound fluttered past his ear and bade him open his eyes to follow. It was an insect, droning its way to a grove of _trees_. Beautiful yews with dark, mysterious boughs secreting paths off into the unknown and he had never seen anything so lovely. The trees reached their dark tips up to the blue, blue sky and heaven help him but a flock of birds flew overhead, crying their restlessness to any that could hear them.

He rolled onto his back and just let the tears roll down his face and into his ears, his hair. Nothing was more important than this right now. The beat of the real world pulsing beneath his body and the free, deep blue sky, limitless above him.

Another sound turned his head. Brown Eyes. She was crying, curled into the other man's arms. He was saying something to her and he could just barely make it out,

"It's okay, Hermione. He's home now. We've got him. He's home."

Hermione. Home.

Brown Eyes was Hermione and he was HOME.

He took a shaky breath and went back to watching the clouds shift across the sky. He _never_ wanted to be inside four walls again.

* * *

><p>AN: Okay, show of hands, who's a bit weepy now? I know I am! Let me know what you think! The next update won't be so quick, but hopefully it'll be around next weekend. ;)


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Special thanks to my beta Yiggersentia. My creative mind would be a chaotic mess without you! And thank you to all who've reviewed and encouraged! Again, I own nothing, only play ;)

* * *

><p>Remus looked up, then gave her a sideways hug and rubbed her arm. "One of us should stay with him."<p>

She nodded, sniffled, then looked over to where her two-year obsession lay on the grass in the cold October daylight, soaking it all in as if it were the middle of June. "I'll do it. You go inside and rest." She looked up at where her friend's gaze had settled and smiled, realizing why his wolfish characteristics had been forthcoming this past day. "It's late in the month."

He looked down from the waxing moon, visible in the sky just over the city's horizon as a pale, ghostly orb hidden behind the clouds every now and again. "All right. Call if you need anything. The boys should be back later today if all goes well."

"I will." She hugged him around the neck, like the uncle or father figure he'd come to be for her since she'd moved into Grimmauld Place two years ago. Of course, that reminded her of why she needed a father figure at all: the fact that hers didn't know she existed. God, that wound never seemed to heal. "Thank you for helping me today, Remus."

"Anytime, popkin. It's what we're in this for, right? We've got one more home."

He pulled back and smiled at her with all the trusting innocence of the unknowing and she felt slightly guilty for harboring feelings for their recovered Potions master, the man that was one time a sort of nemesis of his. She plastered on a proper smile and nodded, hating that it felt like lying. All this time and no one had noticed...no one had seen...what did that say about her? About her relationships with them?

She'd known the boys for ten years now, Remus for a little over seven...did she hide her feelings that well, or did they not know her? Which was the better alternative?

She watched him slip through the iron gate of the small corner garden of the park and pictured his movements across the sidewalk, the cobblestone street, up the granite steps and through the dark vestibule of their home.

A small rustling noise to her left brought her attention back to her immediate surroundings. It wasn't the man lying still on the lawn, he'd not moved an inch. Her eyes searched the undergrowth for the disturbance when a squirrel shifted beneath the hedgerow, digging for something along the ground. At her sigh of relief, it sat up, saw her and scampered off to a nearby tree trunk, scolding her for interrupting its foraging.

She smiled and walked over to one of the wood and iron benches facing each other across the small grassy center of the private little garden conveniently concealed by boxwood hedges, a yew break, and a wildly overgrown rosebush. It was a lovely area, really. They couldn't have picked a better place to Apparate Severus into, now that she thought about it.

Her eyes wandered over the area and she idly cast a ward so they wouldn't be disturbed by a wayward park walker. She looked down at her wand and her mind went blank.

What now?

Oh, bloody hell, what now?

This was so awkward. She had no idea what to do with him, with herself...

For the first time in a decade, Hermione did not have a plan. She'd been focused solely on getting Severus home, out of that horrible farce of a mental hospital and now that he was here...

What was she to do with him?

Was it her responsibility to do anything at all with him?

Wouldn't it be better for her to send him to St. Mungo's?

He wouldn't want that, would he?

Somehow sending him off felt like a betrayal, especially after the apparent maltreatment he'd been through for the past two years. She looked over him again, taking in his carelessly shorn hair, silvery stubble, waxen complexion and sunken body. Dear God, she could clearly make out his hip bones through the thin cotton pants as he lay back and his ribs stood out prominently from his stomach.

Once strong and capable hands lay nearly withered in the grass flung out at each side, making her wonder if he still had full use of them. Did he require physical therapy as well as mental? What could she possibly do to help him?

These were skills she just could not obtain in a book or a quick read. She could research for weeks and not be able to address all of his issues properly, they were simply too numerous! He obviously needed professional help...

Her breathing increased as she started to feel overwhelmed. This was too much. She wanted to be the one to help him, but she couldn't possibly! What could she honestly do to help him beyond what she'd already done?

She tore her gaze away from the man on the ground and racked her brain for her options. What was he missing in his life that she could help him with? There were so many things, it was hard to just focus on a list, but her mind, practiced as it was, ruthlessly stripped her thoughts down to a few concepts.

Dignity.

She could definitely help with that. Clean clothes, a good haircut, a decent bath...God! She scoffed, _shoes_! Food! Hermione inwardly groaned at the list of simple things he'd been denied in his life.

Next, she could help him with his memories. She'd worked so hard on her parents Oblivation...it would be a personal triumph to be able to restore all three of their memories, wouldn't it? _That_, surely, she could find in a book.

And no one begrudge her trying to help with either of these things on her list. The next one would be tricky, however.

Basic human contact.

Oh, she definitely wanted to help with that. Her gaze considered the oubliette eyes that ate up the sky greedily. Would that he looked at her with such hunger...she sighed in resignation. That was another problem. She was resolving herself to accept that this man was not the one she'd built in her mind, but the growing enigma before her was increasingly fascinating as well. What would he become, when the man he'd grown to be reconciled with the man he'd once been? Oh, what a fascinating question.

Her brow furrowed as she answered the unasked part of that question: One he might not care for her to be around to find out the answer to. What if he rejected her help?

She caught a disjointed sob in her throat before it made sound. Dammit, she was Hermione Granger. She would make him accept her help. There really was no one better connected, better placed, better concerned...

But she couldn't force him, that would be just as bad as Hestry...

Nevermind, think about that when the time comes.

On with the list.

The other things he needed: use of his magic, physical therapy, psychological therapy to handle the mental repercussions of the past two years of abuse, well, those things needed someone else. She leaned back against the bench back in a huff in a quasi-defeat and watched him silently as he splayed on the ground.

The day bled from noon to afternoon to evening colors as they both lost themselves in their reveries. Hermione watched him from her bench and occasionally looked up whenever his breath caught at something. It was usually a moment before she saw what he was looking at, but sometimes it was an unusual cloud formation, or a sundog, or even the rays of the sun gilding the clouds and then altering the very color of the sky.

She thought of this garden and the sunset they watched and the Greek myth of the Hesperides, the goddesses of the sunset that tended a beautiful garden. As she looked around, the garden took on so many different colors from its daylight splendor that the mystery enfolding in the petals and leaves left room in the imagination for nymphs and dryads to peek out and play.

He breathed, shivered. She called out to him, the first time she'd talked to him since they arrived so many hours ago, "Are you cold?" She'd long since cast a warming spell over herself, it was late October, after all, and the past few days had been a bit nippy. When he didn't respond, she lifted her head from bracing it on her fist, which had been angled up from the elbow on the bench back and shifted her feet flat onto the ground to face him fully. "Severus? Can you hear me?"

He rigidly nodded without turning to face her.

She knotted her brows in confusion. "Are you cold, then?"

His jaw clenched. Even in the dimming light of the gloaming, she could make out the muscles working along his mandible, writhing up into his hairline. What about that question could possibly get that kind of reaction? "What's wrong?"

"I refuse to go inside." His voice practically shook with emotion.

She was vaguely offended, but she was able to keep that out of her tone. "I'm not asking you to."

"You asked me if I was cold." She blinked at his tone. Amazing. He couldn't remember his name, but he could remember that he was supposed to be a snarky bastard.

She would have smiled if the situation wasn't so serious. Instead, she rolled her eyes. "Yes, and I can cast a Warming Charm on you or bring you a blanket. It would be obvious to a gnat how much you need to be outside right now."

He rolled his head to her with deep, hollow eyes, haunted and shuttered. She quietly gasped and regarded him as steadily as she could but all she could think about was how much she wanted to hunt Hestry down again and rip his brains out through his nose. Nice and neatly Egyptian style – knitting needles and all. It took every ounce of Gryffindor strength inside of her to hold onto Severus' gaze and not let him see pity or anger. Unfortunately, that didn't leave much to open to him so she wasn't sure how to act around him.

She decided on levity. "So are you cold, or not?"

He maintained her gaze, obviously fighting something within himself to answer her question.

She suddenly remembered how freezing it had been in his room...it wasn't much different now, was it? Her face bunched up in a struggle to realize just how much suffering he'd been through. "You're used to this, aren't you?"

He dropped his eyelids, removing his penetrating gaze and looked down to the sleeves of the coat they'd put on him earlier. "I'm not used to the coat."

She bit her lip and swallowed, thinking furiously about the proper way to handle this. What was the best way to handle an unanswerable question? A light went off in her head. The best way to answer an unanswerable question is to ask a different question.

"Would you _like_ to be warmer? Where you are?"

His eyes flew up to hers and after a moment, he actually sat up, leaning his arms on his bent knees. It was still so strange to see him with short, unkempt hair. She still had the view in her mind of his hair swinging in place to hide his expressions and his eyes were hooded at that very moment as if they knew something he himself didn't, as if his body had the memory if his brain didn't of the veil he used to have, used to use so well.

He apparently thought to respond, for he glanced back to her, opened his mouth as if to talk, but stopped, looked past her to the rosebush behind her and only then did he speak in a low, hesitant tone. "I don't remember what it's like...to be warm." After staring into the distance for a few more seconds, he shifted his eyes over to hers, looking for judgment.

Dammit. Everything inside of her screamed for Hestry's blood. She'd never expected to hate someone human, not after Voldemort. That maniac kind of set the bar rather high, but this was personal. This was Severus. He didn't deserve any of this! Again, she had to fight her expression to keep her grief and anger from welling out and pouring over him, giving him nothing but a blank face. It was so very difficult for her. Her! The most expressive of Gryffindors!

But she had to do it for him. And she would.

She would do anything for him, to help him. Slowly, quietly, she stood up and stepped one foot in front of the other, closer to him, keeping his gaze and tilting her head at a slight angle so he knew she wasn't trying to intimidate him. As soon as she was within touching distance, she knelt into the crisp grass beside him with her hands on her thighs and took a small breath.

Tentatively, indicating with slow gestures and looks, she reached for one of his hands with both of hers and carefully sandwiched it, willing her warmth into him. His large nostrils flared as he inhaled and watched her, watched their hands.

She looked up at his face and knew that if she could, she would attempt to bring down the very sun itself to warm him if he wished it.

She exhaled slowly and hoped he'd never wish for something so very unobtainable from her.

A light went off in her head as she remembered something...something she _could_ do. Perhaps not the sun, but the sky might not be so unobtainable...

/

Severus.

That was his name.

With that knowledge, came a niggling sense of self, things that fell into place little by little, disjointed, unwhole, out of place, but he celebrated them nonetheless. They were bits of HIM he'd not had before...or rather, not had for a while.

It was confusing to know that this was inside of him but inaccessible.

His thoughts were interrupted by the conversation about him going on to his right.

"One of us should stay with him." He knew this man. This man was from his past, but where? There were feelings of...resentment...anger...

"I'll do it. You go inside and rest." The woman...the eyes. With his name came odd connotations with her memory— "It's late in the month." With her name—Hermione—it seemed odd in his mind, like it wasn't what he was used to calling her. And yet it fit. Hermione. Brown Eyes. He'd finally put a name to one of the four. Would she know the others? He thought perhaps she would. He closed his eyes against the blinding sky for a moment and recalled the other three. It seemed that they were elemental to him, that knowing them would unlock what he could not remember.

"All right. Call if you need anything. The boys should be back later today if all goes well." The boys? This was turning out to be some group, then. Interesting. And something about the comment 'it's late in the month' struck a chord with the man's identity—

"I will." Severus glanced over in his peripheral vision to see Hermione hug the man and somehow, he felt as if he were intruding on a private moment. It was embarrassing. "Thank you for helping me today, Remus."

That garnered his interest again. That made this sound like this was her machination, not a group effort. What was he to her that she would do such a thing? He remembered her words to him this morning: _I'm so sorry we couldn't find you sooner._

"Anytime, popkin. It's what we're in this for, right?"

Severus blinked. Odd choice of words, but he was in no mood to question them. Instead, he shifted his attention back to the open beauty of the English sky. Hermione moved off to his side and sat down on the bench...he pretended to ignore her and kept his sight trained on the eddies of clouds hypnotically and constantly altering course as they skid across the helmet of the earth. The sun's rays played with these wisps and bits of humidity as the afternoon progressed and he lost himself in the simplistic splendor of each difference.

It reminded him of something...

Potions...

Yes. The swirls and turns of ingredients and color in a solution, curled in on themselves with a ladle or a stir inside a cauldron.

Gods, what a thing to remember! He felt as if something he'd been trying to grasp for so long finally came to his hands firmly bound. It gave him something to hold, something to press inside and build upon the walls of his heart, his anima, his mind.

He was Severus, Brown Eyes was Hermione, and he loved creating Potions.

Truths.

He took a deep, shuddering breath and exhaled into the darkening garden, realizing for the first time just how much time had passed. His face hurt, his eyes hurt...tight and tired...the sun. Knowledge of what potion to use came forth and he was comforted.

"Are you cold?"

Her question froze his comfort and he suddenly felt panic. That question had many underlying requests, and he could not, _would not_ go inside!

"Severus? Can you hear me?"

He rigidly nodded without turning to face her, knowing she needed some form of response, but terrified to give it to her.

"Are you cold, then?" Her tone was confused. Of course, he knew he owed her some reason, some explanation, but how? How could he define that he'd not seen anything but four walls for so long that he'd forgotten the color of the sky? The texture of grass? The height of a tree or the smell of any green thing that grew? He worked his jaw, trying to conceive of some way to answer her query without letting her take him inside-

"What's wrong?"

Perhaps a direct question deserved a direct answer, then. He hated that it was such a simple thing and yet so complicated. "I refuse to go inside."

"I'm not asking you to."

She was talking down to him, as if he were particularly dense. He bristled at the tone. "You asked me if I was cold."

"Yes, and I can cast a Warming Charm on you or bring you a blanket. It would be obvious to an idiot how much you need to be outside right now."

She knew. With a heave of emotion, he turned his face to her, finally, and looked at her. How could she know? He could see her mind working, there were many hidden emotions there and he thought for a moment he could see a prodigious amount of anger—at him? Why?-but her face kept calm and eventually, she spoke with a quirk to her tone that belied a need for lighter emotion than they were both feeling. "So are you cold, or not?"

He watched her, waited to see if she would be able to answer that question for herself when he had not been showing signs of being cold. Or had he? What brought about this line of questioning? Did she see something in his actions he had not known he'd betrayed?

Then, with a horrified expression, she asked, "You're used to this, aren't you?"

There. The moment was open. She realized his dilemma, that he was perfectly capable of handling the chilled temperatures of the autumn evening and somehow knew that was not normal. That reminded him that he wasn't so very cold as usual. He looked to his torso, to the garment hanging off of him. "I'm not used to the coat."

"Would you _like_ to be warmer? Where you are?"

His eyes flew up to hers and after a moment, he actually sat up, leaning his arms on his bent knees. Would he like to be warmer? What would that feel like? He looked at his hands, hanging limp and nearly numb at the ends of his arms. They'd been cold for so long...

It was a kind offer, but to accept was...embarrassing. It admitted so many things. He glanced back to her, tried to say it, but failed. He just couldn't look into those Brown Eyes...the ones that had helped to keep him safe and sane all this time...and say something so needy. And yet, he found he did want it. He wanted to know it again, so perhaps just focusing off her eyes, into the rosebush behind her...yes. Now he could say it. "I don't remember what it's like...to be warm." After staring into the distance for a few more seconds, he shifted his eyes over to hers, looking for judgment.

Her face held still, fighting some battle for emotion and he held himself entirely closed, hoping that she wouldn't abandon her offer now. It was such a simple thing, between humans. It was one of the first things they'd offered each other, wasn't it? Heat. Warmth. Friendship.

Finally, her expression was won. Determination and open helpfulness glowed from her dark eyes as she stood and came to him as if he were a wounded animal. He watched her, fascinated, as she knelt beside him, slowly reached for him—his hand—and pulled it between hers.

He inhaled sharply, feeling her energy coursing up the nerves from his hands and up his arm. It was...this was...

Fire. Heat. Energy. Life. LIFE. Gods, she pushed LIFE into him with her touch! How could she hold such power? It wasn't so much the pleasant warmth that shifted in the molecular heat transfer from her palms into his permanently chilled skin...

No.

This was Lightning.

Tangential energy danced up his nerves and made him feel so very alive, as he'd not done for so very, very long.

She was the Sun, radiant and powerful and all he wanted to do was soak up this energy pouring forth from her.

Gods, it felt good.

It trembled down his nervous system like a spider plucking its web, calling to its prey with the beautiful dew strewn on the morning strands. Down his spine, into his gut, into his-

He blinked, nearly choked.

Snatched his hand away from her.

They stared at each other, breathing heavily in confusion and assuredly for different reasons. There had been no magic, simply human touch and that was the most disturbing part of the connection.

A mercury-halide glow sputtered to life above them, bathing her in a salmon colored light. He blinked up at the source, scowling at the interruption and thankful at the same time. It was a street light. Nothing more.

The dark of night had finally fallen.

"Are you all right?"

Her question seemed out of place. All right? No, he didn't think he'd ever be all right. He took a steadying breath and buried his riotous emotions. "I'm fine."

He looked up at the darkened sky, disappointed that he couldn't see anything beyond that infernal street light, feeling his lip curl as he searched for the tiny points of light he knew should be there.

They sat in silence for a few moments until suddenly the light softly "popped" as if a large fist had somehow found its way inside the plastic enclosure and gently crushed the bulb inside. He watched in fascination as the light faded in a few seconds and they were engulfed in darkness.

His black eyes, he knew, somehow, would adjust quickly to the night. Night time had always been his favorite because of that. He remembered now.

Looking to her, she was still blinking with a wide-eyed, blank expression of one who could not yet see in the dark. It was so tempting to reach out and touch her warmth again, but he held himself still, not daring beyond simply looking at her with the moonlight glinting on the moisture of her eyes, trailing across the planes of her face.

Breathlessly, he watched her reach out for him, though. "Is that better?" What? She did that? She broke the light for him? "Can you see the stars now?"

He wanted to look, he wanted to tear his sight away from her searching hand in the darkness to see the sea of twinkling lights that would remind him of something else...but he could no more look away than he could deny the shock of heat rendered down his spine when her small, hot hand found his shoulder.

Such an innocent touch. And yet not so, because he'd not been touched in so long. Did she have any idea?

Her hand swept across to the other shoulder, across his back, and he held his breath as her head came to rest against the shoulder closest to her. She scooted closer to his back, on the grass, behind him, and heat radiated from her body into his back in so many different ways he could do nothing but close his eyes and bask in it, releasing the pent up breath in a silent shudder.

The hardest part to decipher in the maelstrom of heat churning through him was whether his reaction was to her contact or any contact at all...He wanted so dearly to lean back into her and receive whatever warmth and...else...she offered, but knew it was somehow wrong to do so.

He needed time. He needed to ground himself and find out so much more. He finally swept his lids open and drank in the heavenly sight before him.

The diamond necklace of the night was draped in all its splendor across the ribbon of darkness above this tiny little garden. He pulled in a great amount of air as if he could taste the night and eat the loveliness above him. This image would forever be burned into his mind as his return to the world. Truly night was his preference for the constellations poured from his memory like ingredients, like teaching, like...home.

Bits and blips of other nights, some so very dark and hard to think of that he brushed them aside for the moment, slipped across his conscience like a dream. That was part of his life? He...he was—he shuddered and the woman curled behind him rubbed his shoulder with the palm of her hand, bringing him back to the present.

A sound invaded their space, a metal hinge in need of oiling. "Hermione?"

Severus tensed. She left him, stood up and walked towards the newcomer and he immediately felt her loss. His back was cold again and for the first time, he remembered the difference.

"Harry! You're back!"

He turned just enough to see her embrace this new person and felt oddly confused. Was she so friendly to everyone?

"What happened to the light?"

"Oh, I broke it so Severus could see the stars."

"Er...okay."

"Don't worry about it. He needed it, and I'll fix it later."

"All right, then. Want to go inside and eat? I'll hang out here. Remus gave me a run down of what happened."

Severus didn't know how to take this conversation. An apparent stranger was willing to sit out here with him to keep him company—did he need it? Why did they insist on staying with him instead of leaving him to his own devices? Did he want their help?

He thought about that. Something told him he was perfectly capable of walking away from this situation and finding his own way...but did he want to? Hermione was key. She was one of the four sets of eyes and it might follow that she knew who the others were. That alone was enough to keep him here.

Her hand on his arm brought his attention back to her. "I'm going inside to eat. Do you want me to come back out after or will you be okay with Harry for a while?"

He looked to this 'Harry' in question and was lambasted with Green Eyes. He struggled to conceal his shock. Green eyes with black hair. This was second of the four! He was right! Hermione was key!

Who was this person that he haunted the garden of his mind for two years?

He fought to find some appropriate answer without revealing too much. "I'm not some child to watch. Do as you wish."

He immediately regretted his tone as she straightened and walked over to Green Eyes. "Just...let him be. He's still adjusting."

"He doesn't seem any different."

"Harry-"

"I know. Go on. We'll be fine."

"Thank you."

She left. That part of him that felt somehow connected to her closed his eyes and felt her pull away from him as she closed the iron gate and heard her shoes tap across the pavement to her destination. A heavy door closed and all was quiet.

Green Eyes took Hermione's vacated seat on the bench and pulled out a rolled up bit of something, illuminating the wand in his hand and started reading, completely ignoring Severus.

He quietly breathed the damp night air and tried to think of a way to find out who this person was, realizing he'd not taken the chance with Hermione. Somehow, it didn't seem as important to his _past, _oddly enough. But this person was.

Summoning up courage he couldn't remember he had, and banishing the doubts framing the necessity of such a question, he cleared his throat and simply asked, "Who are you?"


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Again, Ginormous thanks to Yiggersentia. My word count increases by just looking at you! And thank you to all who've reviewed and encouraged! Again, I own nothing, only play ;)

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><p>"<em>Who are you?"<em>

Ha. To ask another person that question was so ironic. Would that he could answer that question, himself. It did feel better to have some knowledge float back, such as his work with potions, but then to have it compounded with the revelation of this young man's apparent connection to him...

What would make the boy loathe him at one point, then change? Was he making it up in his confused mind? Perhaps he didn't know him at all, or perhaps it was a coincidence. Perhaps the boy wasn't answering because his question was considered rude. If they had known each other, then the question would surely be seen as an admission of weakness or worse...he could pity him for asking.

Enough time passed in silence that the idiocy of the question reverberated back to him, curling a sneer across his face. Of course, he couldn't expect compliance and intuition from every person in his range of contact. The boy most likely was offended by the absurdity of the query, and if not, was stuck in a pity-loop, not sure what to say next.

Fantastic. Severus glanced at the other in his periphery, looking for some signal of how to react. Hmph. Nothing. Perhaps the boy was simply stupid. He turned his head away and sighed, irritation boiling just above the level of his embarrassment—

"I'm sorry, Professor, just...give me a second. I didn't expect you to ask that question."

He swung his head back to the young man in surprise. _Professor_? He blinked...yes, he supposed he had taught at one time. It felt right, but old, like a long abused epithet engraved across his mind that was slowly revealed with careful cleaning and a brighter light shone just-so.

They stared at each other for another moment when Green Eyes cleared his throat and continued, "I'm Harry Potter."

Severus had started to face forward again, only to glance back in annoyance. "Your moniker helps me none, young man. I asked 'who are you', not 'what is your name'."

The Potter boy scrubbed his face with his hand and scoffed, groaned. "Still the same Snape, I see."

He felt like biting off some sharp remark except for one word in that statement of his: "Snape?" He furrowed his brow, scowling at the dark-haired menace sitting in Hermione's seat. The word, the name, felt familiar...his and yet not...strong and feared...powerful.

The brat stared at him, open-mouthed in shock, "Jesus, you _have_ lost your memory, haven't you?"

Severus' scowl darkened at that incredulous statement. "Thank you for the obvious. I shall go back to interrogating _myself_ for answers as I will have a clearer and more intelligent discussion." Why was it so insufferably difficult to get a simple answer out of the boy—man—whatever age this person was. Damn. He stared across the darkened shrubbery to his left, looking for something, anything to pull his attention away.

After a few moments of blessed and proud silence, there was a sigh, a shift of the man moving on the bench and a subtle noise Severus knew came from the wand. The gentle silver-blue glow faded away as he plucked blades of grass beside him.

More silence.

His eyes grew adjusted to the darker darkness and caught the moonlight's deft fingers caressing the glossy, tiny leaves of the boxwood. Some night animal moved inside the bush-

"My name is a lot of who I am, I guess. So many people just...know me."

Arrogant, but oddly informative. Severus tossed the broken leaves of grass carelessly in front of him, watching the gentle breeze carry them a few inches off their mark. The boy had not tried to boast or brag about his infamy, but had rather made it sound more of a burden. Interesting.

The boy's ponderous, confused tone continued, "Do you remember Voldemort?"

He sat, frozen still by that question, his fingers curling into a running root of grass, ripping it slightly in his tension.

_Do you remember Voldemort?_

Those four words galvanized him. Ate through the synapses of his brain one by one in a horrific cascade reaction that opened doors, windows, rooms of memories...

_Voldemort_...

The name should have been whispered, suggested, never spoken aloud and yet where was the inevitable punishment to follow such a brazen act? Where were the cloaked and billowing shadows come to eat away at sanity?

_Voldemort_...

He looked to his arm, pushed the material up and stared at the blank, white scar tissue that once had been a privilege, a brand, a shameful act, regretted, reviled...the Dark Mark...

The _Dark_ Lord...

Dark versus Light, a battle fought between the wizarding world and within his own mind for decades. Dark, twisted tunnels of reasons built upon shame, guilt, reparations—both inside and out of himself. Dear gods, that was it! The battle on the edge of reason...

He inhaled as much air as his body could possibly hold at this catastrophic epiphany, watching the waterfall of images wash over his inner eye with each horrendous act returned to his memory. Performed by others while he watched, performed by _himself_ while _others_ watched...always watched...constantly watched...

A dull roar of blood flooded his ears, brought them to piercing pain as a hissing cacophony filled his hearing with crackling flashes of war and pain and torture...endless nights, days, weeks, months, years, _decades_, bent under the pressure of that name...that creature...

..._Voldemort_. Pressure. Pain. He couldn't _breathe_. He couldn't _hear_. He couldn't _see_!

"Sir?"

_Hands_. Get off! Get the hands _off_.

"Sir!"

Go AWAY. _Stop it!_

"Snape! Snap out of it!"

A jet of light shot off into the night, blinding him into submission, into Green Eyes. Whose Green Eyes? A pair at the end and a pair at the beginning...they were connected...guilt, grief, obligation, longing, hatred, despair...

Oh, gods, the _despair_!

He felt himself holding his knees, rocking back and forth, not knowing how to stop, not wanting to stop, shaking his head and not wanting to stop. Go away, go away, go away-

_Crack_!

He heard the footsteps, couldn't make himself turn to see who it was. Friend or Foe? "What's wrong?" That was _her_ voice. Friend. Hermione. Relief. The grip he held on his knees gave slightly and he stopped rocking so quickly his body spasmed in small shudders down every limb.

"He just...lost it. I think he's having some sort of panic attack."

She rounded on him like a mother in front of her cub. "What did you do?" That made Severus look up in shock. She was protecting him? He shook his head slightly. He didn't deserve it...

The Potter boy took offense, offered a defense. "What did _I_ do? Hermione, we were just _talking_." He gestured with his free hand towards Severus and without provocation, he flinched. It was a tiny thing, but she didn't miss it.

"About _what_?" She rushed to his side, knelt into the grass beside him again. "Severus?" Their eyes met and he knew his freshly tormented mind was openly bleeding through his eyes. He didn't like it, but it seemed an inevitable state at the moment and nothing he could do would release his eyes from this protector at his side. She was a fortress, a bulwark, a candle in the darkness.

Her lips thinned as she held onto his upper arm and growled over her shoulder, "Good God, Harry, what the _hell_ were you talking about?"

Potter would have answered, but Severus shocked them all, himself included, by saying the name that was tearing his mind and his heart from him with every newly revealed memory, thought, action, "V-V-Volde-m-mor-rt." Merlin, even his voice was having a hard time associating himself with such a name. It choked and floundered over the power that should be there, should invoke pain and suffering. He winced and shuddered in shame, dropped his head into his hands.

Voldemort had dropped the death sentence. He was the snake, the owner of the snake, the one that had bitten away his existence.

She was still holding onto his arm, but her voice crackled with anger. "Go. Inside. Right _now_."

What? She would punish him like that? He snapped his head up at her betrayal, only to see her stare heatedly not at him, but at Potter...he looked dazedly from her rigid, vibrating frame to the one who shared his shock.

Potter stared at her as if she were turning unusual shades of purple. "But-"

"Don't argue with me." He could practically hear her teeth grinding.

"Yes, _mum_." The oddity of their interchange was enough to distract him from the chaotic hell of his memories...for the moment.

The boy stalked off a few paces, and she seemed to regret her harsh tone. "Harry, I'm—" She stood up and reached for him, but he yanked his arm away just before she could touch it. "Fine."

He nodded curtly and kept walking. She blew out a great sigh, looked back at Severus, then muttered under her breath before rushing towards the iron gate. "Dammit. Harry? Send back some food."

He called back from the other side. "I'm not an elf."

"Please?" She actually bounced on her heels slightly, holding onto the cross bar of the gate.

Another response. "I'm not bringing it."

"Then send someone else, I don't care."

_Slam_! That must have been the heavy door they'd been using. Since the food was apparently for him, it didn't matter. He was used to going a while without eating.

Or drinking.

Or bloody magic. These people...they used magic as if it were air. He used to use it...used to be considered powerful...He stared at his hands, watching the useless, bony caricatures of what they once must have been flex and bend...

Nothing.

Empty.

Like him.

Nothing there to protect himself when the demons of hell came to drag him down where he obviously belonged...nothing to ward off the evildoers that were so very much out there, regardless of the outcome of that last battle...

Nothing...He had nothing...He shouldn't even be here...

His breathing grew shallow, fast, and the night fell colder about his body, tightening his knees and starting the rocking again. Where was his safe place now? He looked to the dark sky, the dark trees, the dark bushes, the dark grass. No light. No color...

No magic...was he truly alive?

The hands in front of his face trembled and he felt himself shake hard enough to rattle his teeth. That home inside his head that made everything bearable...he'd only ever reached it when they gave him his pills-not-potions—

She! She took him away from there. Who would give him his pills now? Where would they come from? How could he get back? His eyes closed against the darkness and no matter how hard he tried, he could not summon up the safe place. No light, no leaves, no safety...

No magic! No LIFE!

He knew there was sound coming out of his throat, but had no idea how loud it was, if it was audible at all. He clenched his hands, clawed at the fingers with the other hand, itched the palms, please PLEASE _something_ come out! Let it out! Where was the magic? Was it in his blood? Would it come out if he could see the blood? Merlin, gods, somebody, where was the mag-

"Shh." Arms surrounded him and he instantly stilled. The shock of bodily contact was...the heat was...Dammit, those were NOT his tears! "Shh. I'm here," she held his hands in both of hers, pulling them into his chest as she embraced him from behind. "It's fine, he can't hurt you now, it's all gone. He's dead."

Dead?

"Do you remember that?"

Yes, I remember death now.

"We killed him. You helped us. You helped Harry kill him."

What was she talking about? Didn't she realize...? "I d-di—" I _died_.

"You _did_."

What? How did she—?

No. By her tone, she was refuting a denial, not confirming his death, and yet, somehow, the answer fit all the same. He had died that day. Severus Snape had died that day. Today...he was someone else with a stranger's name and a world of memories belonging to someone else. Someone he didn't want to be.

Another tremor wracked his body and he felt a jealous sickness pass through him as she sent something magical from her wand to encompass the garden. A ward. It was to protect them, if he remembered correctly, but even as he started viewing her as a source of protection, he viewed her as something to despise. She had so many things, so very many things he wanted. Memory, knowledge, information, magic.

He twisted his shoulders to shove her away and leaned forward, pushed his body farther away in the grass. He looked back at her young confusion and determination and realized she was somewhere in her younger years. Twenty or so. He compared himself and felt so much older. Was that from his actions or from reality? Did it matter? What was age, anyway? A number by which to gauge one's relative experience and abilities. Hmph.

That was something else of which she had the advantage over him. Time.

As was starting to become his habit, he turned his eyes to the stars but now, something was less than comforting. The stars were less than dazzling and as one twinkled, slightly blue, he remembered another set of eyes...

Who did the stars remind him of, and why did they make him feel so desperately alone, regardless of the warmth that had so recently pressed into his back telling him he was not so for the first time in years...

/

Every memory he gained seemed to bring back the sour Potions master she'd known so long ago. Was she glad? Wasn't that good? He'd let her—well, seemed to welcome her touch less than a half-hour ago, but now...Now he seemed more like his old self, more enclosed within.

Hmph, as if one could get more self-enclosed than spending two years in a box with no real windows and no true human interaction.

She dropped her head forward and rested her hands on her thighs. Her knees were starting to strain from pressing into the ground with all her weight on them, so she shifted to sit tailor-style behind her former teacher. Her mind ran in circles, trying to place where she stood with Severus. What was the protocol for this situation, for how they were to interact?

With a sigh, she realized she needed books. Desperately. Perhaps she could do that and offer to find more material for Remus if she took some time in the London Library tomorrow. He'd certainly come up with some interesting information on his own today.

Well, Severus was set on ignoring her for the grass again, so she let her mind wander back to her dinner conversation with Remus and Tonks:

"How is the old goat?"

Hermione looked back at Tonks with a bit of surprise. "What?" She grabbed a plate and a glass from the wooden cupboard next to the sink, then settled across from Remus at the trestle table that ate up most of the kitchen. Old goat? Was she referring to Severus? She mentally kicked herself. Well, she certainly hadn't meant Harry. "Oh, he's...quiet. Adjusting, I guess." She conjured water with a silent _Aguamenti_.

Remus looked up from his newspaper. "I would imagine it's a lot to take in."

"Mmm." He'd caught Hermione taking a sip and Tonks leaned over the table with a bowl of chicken salad.

"Here ya go. Made it myself."

She smiled and helped herself with the spoon already dug into the salad. Tonks was so proud of her growing culinary skills, especially since their son, Teddy, seemed to finally be starting on normal food and she could create the same meal for all of them. Hermione's smile turned to a grin as she remembered a disastrous attempt at chicken salad a few months before, "Are there any bones in it?"

"Ha bloody ha."

Somehow, seeing Tonks—would she never go by Lupin?—stick her tongue out was comforting. Hermione looked around the kitchen and noticed its almost-full-time occupant missing, "Where's Ronald?"

Remus replied from behind his newspaper, "He went upstairs to finish catching up on sleep. Apparently the boys had quite the adventure."

"Really?" Shocking, "You mean, he didn't even _eat_?"

Tonks laughingly replied as she clambered over the seat next to her husband. "Remus said he was knackered, not gone off. He nearly ate Sev's portion until I snatched the bowl out of his hand."

She swallowed her mouthful and rolled her eyes, "Oh, God, thank you for that!"

Tonks smiled in return, "No problem. How'd he take meeting Harry?" Her smile devolved into a penetrating, nervous look and Remus lowered his newspaper again, interested in Hermione's response.

She thought about the multitude of expressions that had run across Severus' face as she took another bite and swallowed, considering what was the best thing to say. "I don't know. He seemed to recognize him, but not. It was a strange thing to see."

Remus folded the newspaper and set it on the table. "How do you mean?"

She stared at the couple, wondering what they were looking for in an answer. The reality was difficult to put exactly into words, but she supposed it was necessary to try. "Well, I'm not sure. He seemed surprised by Harry, almost as if he recognized him, but kind of like he couldn't remember from where."

Tonks looked to her husband and shrugged. "Perhaps he and Harry will have a chat and something'll come back to him."

He looked thoughtful as Hermione ate. "Hmm. Well, while you two were out lounging in the park, I did a bit more research into our Mr. Hestry and his facilities."

Trust Remus to keep them productive. It was one of the reasons he was the leader of their recovery group. "Did you? So, what did you find?"

"Remember how we couldn't find any Muggle records on him?"

She nodded.

He grinned and leaned a bit forward. "On a whim, I tried Ministry records."

His grin was promising, leading her to think, "You found something?"

"Something." He grinned and snagged a forkful of salad from the bowl, taking the time to eat it slowly.

"Remus!" Oh, she could smack him! She wadded up her napkin and tossed it at him across the table, which he easily batted away with a chuckle. "You picked a bad time to take a bite, now what did you find?"

He swallowed while laughing, "Hestry's a squib."

"What?"

He knew she heard him, the gleam in his eye told her so. "Yes, and his facility is not on the Ministry list of care facilities, so I imagine he's gone completely rogue."

Well, now, that was an interesting development. That was also rather convenient. They wouldn't have to deal with the Ministry for using magic in front of Muggles due to their little rescue mission earlier in the day. She wondered, though, "Did you find anything else?" Why would a squib be running a fake psychiatric hospital? In Bath? And then extort money from the local populace or anyone gullible enough to come along?

It still stuck in her craw that she'd been that gullible—expecting it, even.

Remus answered, determined, "No, but that doesn't mean we won't."

That had been when Harry's stag Patronus galloped into the kitchen. Hermione dropped her fork and ran to the front vestibule, Apparating into the park immediately.

Oh, God. OhGodohGodohGod, what happened? Severus or Harry? Or both? Were they under attack? Her eyesight adjusted to the darkness and she saw Harry standing over Severus, who was still huddled on the grass in the same place she'd left him, only this time, he looked like he was holding himself so tight he might break. She skid to a halt between them. "What's wrong?"

Harry looked dazed, as if Severus was a wild animal that had just tried to bite him. "He just...I dunno, lost it. I think he's having some sort of panic attack."

Panic? What did he have to panic about? He was safe now! He'd been fine when she left! "What did you do?"

Harry stared back at her in disbelief. "What did _I_ do? Hermione, we were just _talking_." She followed his gesture to Severus and watched in horror as the abused man shrank in on himself as if expecting a blow. Oh, God—what in hell?

"About _what_?" She rushed to his side, knelt into the grass beside him again. "Severus?" She held his arm in her hands and tried to garner his attention, to see what was going on in his mind. Surely, there would be some inkling, some idea of what he was going through written on his face if she could only look close enough...

Her stomach flipped. There was no need to look closely, his torture was screaming through the broken defenses of his oubliette eyes. Her lips thinned as she held onto his upper arm and growled over her shoulder, "Good God, Harry, what the _hell_ were you talking about?"

Harry's face wracked with hurt, anger, defense, but Severus stuttered the answer to her question, sending needles of fear down her spine, "V-V-Volde-m-mor-rt."

He choked over the word as she stared at him, open-mouthed and afraid of what that name meant to him now. When he dropped his head into his hands in apparent shame, she couldn't help but feel rage coursing through her. Of all the calloused, idiot, _dunderheaded_ things to say to a man in this state, Harry had to bring up _that_ _name_!

"Go. Inside. Right _now_."

She seethed. How dare Harry sabotage her rescue efforts with such a carelessly placed subject? She had done nothing but stand behind him for ten years, ten bloody years and this was how he repaid her efforts!

Harry's eyes widened, condemning his culpability in her own. "But—"

"Don't argue with me," she growled.

His shock turned to a sneer. "Yes, _mum_." As soon as he stomped off, however, her sense of betrayal was snapped. What was she thinking? This was Harry and Severus! What else did they have in common? God, she was stupid. This was all her fault, she should never have left them alone!

"Harry, I'm—" She reached for him, but he yanked his arm away just before she could touch it. "Fine." She sighed. He would need some time to cool off before she could apologize.

He nodded curtly and kept walking. She blew out a great sigh, looked back at Severus – he was so bloody thin – then ran towards the iron gate, gripping the cross bar in both hands. "Dammit. Harry? Send back some food."

She could barely see him, but he kept walking as he yelled over his shoulder. "I'm not an elf."

"Please?"

He stopped on the stoop with the door open, letting just enough light out so she could see his outline. "I'm not bringing it."

"Then send someone else, I don't care." He glanced back over his shoulder, tilted his chin down in begrudging agreement, then slammed the door behind him.

She huffed and dropped her hands from the gate to her hips. Why—what was it about this situation that had her on tenterhooks? Shaking her head, she turned to see how Severus was doing.

Her guess was, not good.

He was staring at his hands as if they were something foreign, opening them and closing them like a child, just like Teddy when he'd discovered the tools of their endless torment at Grimmauld Place. Severus turned his hands over, examined the palms as if they held the mysteries of the universe, or at least the universe of himself—he started shaking, his hands palsying and clenching in front of him as if separate from his control.

Moonlight shifted back and forth across the cropped and silvering darkness of his hair as his head swung side to side – oh God, he really was having a panic attack or something!

By the time she reached him, he was tearing at his hands, scrubbing them against this face, his chest, clawing the palms, "Shh!" She hurriedly knelt behind him and reached around him, grabbing his flying hands, catching his wrists and holding them against his chest. "Shh. I'm here," _Oh Severus!_ She rocked into him, willing comfort and concern, help, through her body into his.

Just the mention of Voldemort's name and he was this way? Her eyes fought back tears at the enormity of what he must be digesting from opened memory... "It's fine, he can't hurt you now, it's all gone. He's dead."

He stopped, even leaned into her a fraction of an inch. She kept talking, "Do you remember that?"

Maybe expanding on what good he did would help calm him? "We killed him. You helped us. You helped Harry kill him."

He shook his head again, slightly, jerking denial, "I d-di—"

How could he think that? "You _did_."

She dropped her chin to his shoulder and held him tightly. Perhaps he'd feel better with increased protection? Maybe not more people, but another show of placing a ward? She tentatively let his hands go, kept one of her hands on his shoulder and slipped the other slowly around to retrieve her wand from her pocket.

As soon as she cast the spell, he tensed, watching the light spread from her wand to encompass their garden. His head shifted so he could see her out of his peripheral and she leaned over to look at him better, but he took the opportunity to twist his shoulders out of her grasp.

What did she do? He scooted away at least a foot and tossed another glare over his shoulder at her.

What? Would he not accept her help now?

She stared at his back with her fists in her lap as he ignored her for the sky once more.

Well.

He was obviously remembering _something_ or he wouldn't be acting like this...unless...

She covered her mouth with her hands. "Oh God, oh no! The medication!" She scrambled over to Severus as he leveled a piercing gaze on her. "Was yesterday the last time you had your—the medication?"

He blinked, clenched his jaw, stared at her with that eyebrow. Damn his eyebrows! "I'm serious, Severus, when did they last give it to you?"

He threw away a blade of grass he'd obviously been worrying between his fingers. "I would that I knew."

Her mouth dropped open at least a half-inch, searching his face for any more information than that. She knew he'd been given medication yesterday, but how long did the residual stay in his system? Had they dosed him again after she left? She remembered reading somewhere that some medications can take up to a week or more to completely clear out of the human body.

Her own words came back to haunt her. What would the magical backlash be once the chemicals started working out of his system? She looked around the garden, knowing he couldn't be out here when that happened. They needed stronger wards, he needed more strength—

And where was that damned food?

The iron gate's hinges groaned and she spun around, hiding her wand behind her leg.

Tonks grinned and sauntered over with a plate in hand. "Wotcher. Harry seemed a bit put out, so that left me to bring dinner."

"Thank you, Tonks." Hermione took the plate and set it on the ground between herself and Severus. He stared at the plate as if it were about to crawl away of its own volition, then looked up to Tonks.

"No problem. Hiya, Sev." The older woman tossed a wave at him, expecting familiarity...and getting it? Hermione watched him, stunned at his easy recognition.

He responded with a solemn nod, "Nymphadora."

"You know her name! You remembered her name!" How did he know her name? Was he already cured?

He blinked at the apparent surprise and looked back down at the dinner plate with narrowed eyes. "So it seems."

Tonks' hair flared crimson and she frowned, "Great. Now you can forget it again."

Severus smirked but Hermione interrupted, "No, Tonks, this is fantastic!" She turned back to him, prodding her hand on his shoulder to gain his attention. "How much do you remember now? What do you think is missing?"

His lips pursed and his eyebrows raised in disbelief. Such a 'Snape' look. "You expect me to pick through a lifetime's worth of memories like some jigsaw puzzle and find the missing pieces?"

His face was implacable, but she needed to press on. What was an obvious way to find out? Ah! "Well...do you remember who I am?"

He glanced from her to Tonks and back with a perplexed expression, squinting his eyes slightly as if trying to detect a trick. "You're...Hermione."

She deflated. "Oh." So much for wishful thinking. Why did that feel a bit hurtful? Why did he remember Tonks and not her?

His defensive response confused her. "That's what everyone has been calling you."

She looked into his eyes, hoping for some spark of recognition, fearing what that might entail at the same time. "That's not what _you've_ always called me, though." _Granger, Insufferable Know-it-all, Silly Girl_...

He continued staring at her, twisted his lips and spat out, "Well?"

"What?" She swallowed. If he didn't remember anything, then he didn't remember his prejudice of her either, did he? He'd willingly called her by her first name and she rather liked it. How could she get him to continue?

He pressed the issue, "What have I been known to call you? Have I been inappropriately familiar or were you just assuming you could use my given name as you wished?"

Uh oh. "Um...Tonks?" _Please, please, help me!_

"Yah?" She looked entirely too amused at Hermione's expense.

Well, it didn't hurt to ask, "A little help, please?"

She laughed outright. "_Oh_, no! Ha! You walked into that one, luv. I'll just leave you to it."

"_Tonks_—"

"See ya! Later, Sev!" She curled her fingers in a jaunty wave and winked.

"Tonks!" She pled with her eyes, _Don't leave me like this! _The older woman laughed again and shook her now-blue hair as she left, closing the gate behind her. Hermione watched the inanimate gate until she heard the door close across the street, desperate to avoid the looming conversation. Maybe he'd forget about it...then again, maybe not.

"I'm assuming since you seem to be the same age as Mr. Potter, and since he addressed me as Professor—"

She interrupted smartly, "For once."

He continued, irritated, "—that you must have been a student? I'm recovering bits and pieces, but my memory fails at that crossroad. Please tell me, at what point did we became familiar enough to address each other by our given names?"

_Oh, about the five-hundredth time I read your last letter to Dumbledore._ Bollocks. That was it, then, wasn't it? "I—um...well." She stared at her hands as they twined nervously in her lap.

"I see." Those two words were so _cold_.

God, this was awful. He was so still. He'd shut her out for sure, now. "I'm sorry...Professor."

He was silent, but then held out his arms at the elbows, inspecting his garments with haughty disdain. "Well, I don't believe I'm still in teacher's robes."

Her head snapped up to find his expression slightly annoyed, "Pardon?" Was he allowing her—surely he only meant the title was wrong, "Oh, Mr. Snape, then?"

He sighed and straightened his back a bit, sitting taller than she by several inches. "I'm afraid you should probably continue with the familiarity."

She stared back at him in amazement. He was serious! Her heart skid, tripped, nearly choked her at the permission he was granting, even if she'd already taken it. "Are you sure?"

And there was the unarguable eyebrow.

It was enough to make her smile, even if only a little bit. "All right. Thank you...Severus."

They maintained eye contact for several moments and she realized with a sinking heart just how familiar she'd allowed herself to be with him. He had not had human contact for two years besides Hestry's circus and despite seeming to welcome her touch earlier, she rather thought it would be prudent to reassess the situation. Especially when he looked at her as if he could read every wandering thought she'd ever had for him. She swallowed nervously. God, was he still a Legilimens?

She broke eye contact for that very reason and as soon as she did, he responded. "You're welcome...Hermione." She took a deep breath and shuddered, thankful to have wriggled her way out of that somehow. Unfortunately, he wasn't finished, "So...what _did_ I call you?"

He couldn't be...Did he remember, had he read her mind, or was he still that good at reading people?

Regardless, did she want to tell him the truth? _God, help me, what do I say?_

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><p>AN: God help ME. Did I use enough pronouns and prepositions, you think? *insert eyeroll* Suffice it to say, I'm not particularly pleased with this chapter, but it's a vehicle. Hopefully the next one will be more cooperative. Thank you everyone who's been reading and reviewing, especially those who've been critiquing and giving me things to chew on ;) Of course, I adore those who 'squee' but at heart, I am a pragmatic gal and know that I shan't be able to maintain that level of response. LOL

What's in store for our overly-fanfic'd couple next time? A room with a view, a walk with exhaustion, and a proposition for Snape. *eyebrows wiggle* I may not fit it all in, considering how absolutely verbose I'm becoming, but we'll see. I'm letting them set their own paces. In the meantime, Cheers! *salutes with and tips back a glass of Balvenie*


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: Hang onto your wands, m'dears, you're in for a bit of a ride. Anti-litigation charm in previous chapters.

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><p>"So...what <em>did<em> I call you?"

He couldn't be...Did he remember, had he read her mind, or was he still that good at reading people?

Regardless, did she want to tell him the truth? _God, help me, what do I say?_

_/_

Hermione brought her eyes back up to meet the darkly amused ones of her former professor and took a slow breath in through her nose, out through her mouth. "That was so long ago. Does it really matter, now?"

He actually considered the question with narrowed eyes and his head knocked back a fraction of an inch, much to her surprise. After a moment, though, he quirked a twisted smirk. "Most likely not, but humor me. It was apparently good enough to warrant your trepidation, so consider me beyond curious."

His baritone voice was nearly normal in its teasing tone. It was rather difficult to breathe in the face of it, understanding that he was requesting her to reveal the things that made her dislike him at one time, as well as knowing that to reveal what he was requesting had the ability to kill that teasing tone he was using with her now.

Looking for a way to draw out the conversation as well as answer the question, she threw in the evident, "Well...'Miss Granger', obviously."

He slowly closed his eyes and bunched his brow in impatience, then opened his eyes patronizingly, "Droll. But not enough to make you hesitate to tell me."

How did he...was it just her, or was this somehow evolving into a game of sorts? "Well, you did call me...silly." Lord, but it was growing difficult to keep a straight face.

He must have caught on, for he seemed to have the same affliction. "Interesting. Not what I would first think of." His almost-warm look lead her on, gave her strength.

Perhaps he wouldn't close up behind his facade if he knew what he'd called her. Perhaps if she treated it as a joke between them, it would be okay. Perhaps if delivered with a smile..."Insufferable Know-it-all."

"Ah!" His mouth opened and his face cleared in triumph, but there was no malice..."At last, we come to the heart of it. And are you?" Was that...playfulness?

Was he really?

Was he playing with her? She quirked a bit of a smile but stopped herself.

She watched his expressions, marveled that her intuition seemed to be correct. He took the cue and played the part as if it were an endearment or a lark. She dumbfoundedly repeated the question back to him, "Am I?"

Oh, God, there went the Eyebrow. How could that be so much a part of someone that they never forgot it? She wondered what would be so much a part of herself?

He deepened the angle of his chin. Ah, to answer him. "Erm...well, it's been said by more than you, so I suppose so."

He tilted his head. "If it was said by more than myself, what makes me so memorable for saying it?"

Oh, it was childish, but the only thing she could think of to respond was said too fast and too tightly from between her teeth for him to hopefully make out clearly, "You started it."

And of course, being the former teacher that he'd been, he seemed to hear and understand her perfectly. His lovely – lovely? Stop that! - lips quirked in amusement. "Pardon me? I couldn't hear you."

Liar. He'd heard her alright. His continued teasing made her stop and look at him. Really look at him. There was a smile playing at the corners of his mouth as if he were enjoying this. Was it because it was her or because she was human? Was he enjoying the camaraderie or was he enjoying watching her squirm? As she looked, with her fear and confusion surely written on every line of her face, his face blanked from its smirk. She felt herself lean forward and quietly inhale at the loss of expression from him, but quickly back away for fear of...well...so many things.

She brought up her hands to push back into the masses the tiny wisps of hair that were tickling her face. "You were the first." She couldn't look at him, wouldn't, but she felt him look at her, hard, still, discerning. "To call me that, you were the first one."

There. It was out. Done. That wasn't so bad, Granger, now was it?

"Hmm." _Hmm_? That was his response? _Hmm_- "Now that—I feel I should be somehow honored."

Her head snapped up to catch his expression. Was he mocking her?

...No...

Before she could catch the summation of what he was truly showing her, he looked away, again to the stars, but this time, after a few moments, he closed his eyes.

Well. Did he mean that? What a turnabout, if so. The man who once claimed her cursed teeth looked no different than her normal appearance, the man that had constantly—_constantly—_jibed at her about her ability to answer every question in class was actually expressing pride in being the first to call her "Know-It-All". Not only that, but he was under the impression that it was a joke between them.

God, what a lark. Impressions were everything, weren't they?

She watched him, watched him breathe.

She didn't know if it was alright to talk to him while he was sitting so still or not, but she could at least try. "Are—are you tired?" She tilted her head to try to see his face more fully.

His ear twitched. It was odd to see that, since it made her wonder how often it did that before when his hair covered it. He kept his eyes closed and simply stated, "No."

Well, that wasn't precisely a dismissal, "Ah...Hungry?"

He actually turned his head to look at her in confusion. "Not particularly."

"Well, you should eat, regardless." What. He knew she was the Know-it-all. Why not show him why?

He apparently thought along the same lines. "Hmph." He looked to the plate sitting between them with a stasis charm glittering in a small bubble around it. "What is it?"

Her lips quirked at his sneer. "Chicken Salad."

She canceled the stasis charm and lifted the plate up to him. He took one tentative sniff with his prodigious nose and glared from the dish to her as if she were offering him poison.

She looked down at the plate to see what was wrong, saw nothing, and looked back up at him. "Well, what are you used to eating?"

He sneered and pulled at the grass again, chucking the blades to the slight breeze. "Pheasant under glass."

Smart-arse. "Severus. Seriously, now." He did seem to pause at her use of his name, which made her feel slightly odd, but he simply snarked another dish name out into the evening.

"Beouf Bourguignon."

She huffed in irritation. Perhaps the simplicity of the fare was offending him? "Fine, if you didn't want it, you could have just said so." She pulled the dish closer to herself and looked it over. A piece of lettuce with a few spoonfuls of salad plopped on top and crackers dropped haphazardly around the side of the plate surely didn't look like fine dining, but honestly, what did he expect? She stared from the plate to him waiting for an explanation.

He finally looked back at her _with_ the eyebrow. "In case you hadn't noticed, I'm—not used to eating a great deal," he flourished his hands to indicate his malnourished body.

More than Himself could use an eyebrow, and she showed him. "All the more reason for you to eat, now."

"To be perfectly plain, I'm not sure I could digest something so rich in spices as _that_." He actually pointed with a blade of grass.

She followed his dagger of grass and its direction to the plate she was holding. "Rich?" Chicken salad?

He sniffed again and looked as if he were offended. "You've not been deprived...you can't smell them as I can. The oil, the salt, black pepper, eggs, the meat boiled in garlic, more salt..." He took another draft of air, carefully, glanced back at her, "and I think a hint of curry which is an amalgamation in and of itself. In point of fact: Rich...for someone like me."

He could tell all of that from smelling...? "Oh," Good Grief, what else could he smell with that nose? She set the plate down on the ground beside her, away from him, "What...what should I get for you then?"

Eying her, he slowly reached around her to the plate. She watched him in confusion as he picked up one of the crackers and retreated to bite down on it with a precise snap. When he noticed she was staring, he finished chewing, swallowed, and explained, "This will do."

She propped a fist on her hip from her seated position. "You need more than that, surely."

He nodded and ate the rest of the cracker in another bite. "Surely." As he reached for another cracker, she rolled her eyes and slid the plate closer.

"Prat." She softened the accusation with a smirk.

He snorted "Know-It-All" in return but the inhalation caused him to choke on a bit of cracker and cough. Hermione immediately conjured a glass and filled it with water, wand at the ready, but he just glared at her and kept coughing.

"Severus? Take a drink!" She pulled at one of his hands and pressed it around the glass. He capitulated and after taking a sip to stave off the coughing fit, he glared at her again.

"What." Why would he glare at her now? What did she do?

He pointed to the glass. "Could you please refrain from showing off in front of me? It's becoming rude."

Rude? What? "Excuse me?" He thought she was being rude by conjuring a glass of water for him? "Fine, next time you're choking I'll just let you." She felt her cheeks redden and sting with indignation.

He narrowed his eyes in defense. "A simple whack on the back would have sufficed. I thought it rather obvious I cannot perform magic."

She snatched the glass of water out of his hand, sloshing it over his arm a bit and not apologizing for it. "Perhaps a whack on the back of your head...OH!" What he'd said finally registered. Oh shite, she was such an imbecile. "I'm...I'm so sorry. I'll stop." She actually felt guilty enough to hide her wand in her back pocket, out of sight. She couldn't believe she'd been so insensitive. "Can you at least...feel it?"

He'd been staring at her as if she worked for the Quibbler. "What was that first bit?"

Nngh! What had she said? Something about hitting him on the head? "Nothing!" Redirect! Redirect! "The magic? Can you feel magic?"

He narrowed his eyes, obviously not wanting to drop the subject completely, but letting her, nonetheless. "No."

Thank goodness, he let her redirect. She smiled weakly. "Nothing?"

He blinked, paused for effect, and deadpanned, "That's what 'no' means."

She turned her head away before she responded with a stuck-out tongue or a rolled set of eyes. The last thing she wanted right now was for him to see her as a child, and part of that meant resolving this issue of whether or not he still had his magic. What would be an easy way to prove he still had it? He could obviously see the spells she cast, but so could any Muggle. Wait! There was something nearby that not any Muggle could see and Severus was a participant in the secret! If he still had his magic—

Hermione looked back to him with a curling smile, "Would you care to prove that?"

He instantly looked suspicious. "Is my word not enough?" And offended.

She remembered his coaxing from before and repeated his words back to him. "Humor me."

When she stood up, he watched her movements with uncertainty in his eyes, "How?"

"Come to the garden gate. No further. I just want to see if you see something."

Holding out her hand to him in invitation, he merely looked at it before standing on his own, slowly, awkwardly. She raised her brows at his stubbornness, but turned to lead him to the gate, listening to the cold grass rustle and crackle under their footsteps. When they came up to the iron fence, she gripped the cross bars as before and pointed to the row of buildings across the street.

"There. Do you see Number Twelve?" She looked to him, searching for any signs of recognition. It might have been a risk to show him the former headquarters of the Order, but she rather thought the exterior wouldn't be as traumatic as the interior.

"Yes. It's a house. What's remarkable about someone's residence?" He glanced down at her, obviously growing disappointed.

She shook her head. "It's secret-kept." Taking another risk, she reached for his hand as it rested next to hers on the iron bars. "Don't you see? If you had no magic at all, you wouldn't be able to see it."

The light growing in his eyes was both encouraging and disturbing. He seemed to be fighting something inside. "Whose secret?"

"Harry's." It wasn't a lie, exactly. Anymore.

She was watching his expression so carefully for signs of panic, the shuttered hooding of his eyes threw her off. "You live with him?"

Blinking her eyes and her mouth, she fought to catch up with his logic. "Several of us do. The Order was no longer needed, so those of us that were left and so inclined decided to search for those lost in the war. Like you." She didn't think about tightening her grip on his hand as they both rested on the crossbars, but she did as she looked up at the house with its darkened windows and dirty brick. Harry wouldn't let her spruce up the exterior. What was the point, he'd say. No one else could see it. But she saw it, and those they'd saved over the years had seen it and that had always meant something to her, that their purpose had something clean and well-pointed to cling to. She sighed and remembered the rest of what she wanted to tell Severus. "It's a halfway house, of sorts."

His hand rested beneath hers, a bit chilled, but she could feel the fine bones and tendons warming to her hand. He was obviously taking in what she had said and she wished she could express so much more, but how much would hurt him right now? How much was too much?

He stared at the house long enough for her to look from the house to their hands and up to him, wanting to know what he was thinking. Clenching his jaw with a bit of a desperate look in his eye, he ground out in a gravelly voice, "What Order?"

Ah. Trust Severus Snape to narrow down her entire explanation of two year's worth of work into the two words that could quite possibly send him into another fit. Well, not on her bloody watch. "I think you've had enough excitement for one night, don't you?"

He stepped a few inches closer and towered his shadow down on her from above, growling his question again, "What Order?"

She may be smaller than he was, and her heart might be racing at the proximity of him, but she wasn't sorted into Gryffindor all those years ago for nothing. She jutted her chin out and up, "Not tonight."

Apparently the fact that she hadn't simply told him 'no' was enough to throw him off his stride. He blinked down at her, "Why not?"

Why not? _Why not?_ She pulled his hand off the crossbar and cradled it in both of her own between them, showing him the red welts still evident from before. "Because earlier tonight you nearly tore your hands off at the mention of the reason the Order existed, that's why not!" And perhaps she shouldn't have growled that last little bit, but maybe it would get the point through.

He stared at their hands, his one and her two, a confused and slightly...scared?...expression danced across his face before he simply stated, "Ah." Finally, he lifted his gaze to hers. She became acutely aware of holding his hand, wanting to pull it closer, wanting to breathe, but then he said, "That wasn't why."

It took her a moment to tear her mind out of the dark, deep depths of his eyes and back to the surface so she could stutter a breath and try to understand what he was saying, "Why what?"

He gestured with a small clenching motion of his hand in hers. "The...hands." His head torqued an inch to the left as if to negate something, but there was no question spoken between them. "You've given me something to think about with the house...with magic." He looked over his shoulder to Number Twelve.

She watched him watch the house as she tried to understand what he was saying. Her thumbs reflexively ran over his palm as she thought. If he hadn't wanted to tear his hands off at the mention of Voldemort..."oh. Oh. Of course. Oh my God, I'm so stupid, of course."

He had been trying to tear into the lack of magic inside his hands.

The very thought made her feel slightly ill.

As soon as her pained and empathetic eyes met his, that eyebrow went up.

Well, perhaps if it wasn't really Harry that had upset him that much, then maybe it would be okay to take him inside Number Twelve. "Do you want to see inside?"

He snatched his hand away and stepped back into the shade of a hedge. "No."

Well. That was a manifested fear if ever she saw one. The problem was, she was getting tired and there was no way she was going to sleep out here in the public park. Eying his closed body-language, she thought over her options. She could try and wake Ronald—Ha! She looked up at the third floor of their house. Fat Chance of getting that dead sleeper up!

Or she could try and tempt Severus with something that might make him want to make the trouble of the trip through an enclosed space. Hmm. That was obviously the more likely option, but what would be tempting enough? Briefly, her mind flit over another individual that had been afraid of four walls but trapped at Grimmauld Place: Sirius Black.

Harry's godfather had worked rather hard on the rear garden, expanding it to maximum capacity within the double-wythe brick walls surrounding it. He even spent most nights in a hammock out there...Yes! That should do it. She smiled, "Even if it gets you to the rear garden where there's a nice hammock you can sleep in?"

The idea apparently had merit with him at the slight spark of interest that danced across his face. He thought about it for a moment, then, "You can't...Apparate...into the garden?"

"No. I can't." Really, she couldn't. It was part of the Fidelius Charm. He should have remembered that, actually. She smiled apologetically.

He stared down at her from the shadows, doubtfully. "Let me think about it."

There really wasn't anything better she could do. She couldn't give him what he wanted and to push him would make him flat out refuse. "Alright."

So now she was left with nothing to do and nothing to focus on.

It was a moment before she actually noticed that the contrast of the darkness he'd closed around himself and the slightly lighter night she stood in allowed her to see the soft puffs of breath between them condense into little clouds and fade off into ether. They stood facing each other, breathing into the night, not really looking at each other, but not really acknowledging anything else, either. He inhaled, she shuddered an exhale and crossed her arms.

He leaned against the railing and she stared into the dark spot of him, unable to make out his expression or precise movement, and then he slid down the fence and sat, arms out on his knees. His feet were visible in the slight light available to her, finely arched toes curling in the spikes of grass.

She sighed and sat down against the fence next to him. What was she going to do with him? He was so close and yet growing ever farther from her...she arranged her legs to fold with her knees facing towards him and dropped her head back against the bars. When she rolled her head to try and see him, he was looking up again.

Her curiosity finally got the better of her. "What do you see?"

"Mm?" His response bobbed his Adam's Apple, but nothing else moved.

She looked up to where his gaze was trained. "When you look up at the stars, what do you see?"

He sighed, brought a hand up to scrub his rough face, dropped his head to stare at his lap. "Eyes."

Both her brows raised in confusion. Better to let him expand upon that if she wanted clarity.

She wasn't to be disappointed.

"I see eyes." He looked back up to the sky. His expression was haggard, haunted, but it wasn't until he turned to look at her that she had to bite back a gasp at the pain his boring gaze caused her. "The stars remind me of one of the sets of eyes I saw in my...Safe Place. That was the mental place I would go to when they medicated me. The only thing that kept me, comforted me for the past two years were the Eyes in my Safe Place. And I can't seem to get back."

So many questions burned through her mind at this gift of an explanation from him: What did the Safe Place look like? What did he mean by the eyes? Whose eyes? Why did the medication induce it? Was the medication hallucinogenic? How would that affect his recovery? How would not getting back to that Safe Place affect his recovery?

That actually seemed the most important question to ask at the moment, "What do you mean, you can't get back?"

He glanced at her and gestured with his hands. "Ever since my...attack...I've been trying to get back to my Safe Place, and I can't." His hands fisted. "I just...can't. I'd only ever gotten there when they medicated me and I don't know how to get there on my own."

He sounded so angry...so lost. She wanted to help him so much and it was so much a part of her to solve any problem put before her. Her mind sifted through solutions to his problem and came to the most logical one, "Have you thought of trying meditation?"

He blinked and turned his head fully to her. "What?"

She smiled encouragingly to him, "I can show you a way to meditate that _should_ take you to your safe place. I can't guarantee it, but we could try."

His mouth was open only a quarter of an inch, but he could have been gaping at her. He mumbled in astonishment as he stared at her. "Meditate. Of course, I should have been able to think of that."

Hermione blushed, looked down and smirked, "Oh, I don't know. You've had a bit to process today."

She heard an answering smirk in his tone, "This is true." He took a breath and exhaled. "Well, then, I'll just get to it."

Wait a minute! She had to get him to the rear garden first! "Oh, no. It's not that easy. You'll be completely vulnerable while you do that and it's the middle of the night. I'm tired, Severus, and no one else is available to watch you." She held up a hand and started ticking off points with her fingers, "Tonks has to watch Remus, we've both managed to tick Harry off and Ronald is completely out cold asleep. I need you safe and I need sleep. You need to come into the gardens in the back of the house. There you can meditate and I can sleep." To top off her tirade, she made sure to give him her best scowl. Learned from him.

From his expression, it seemed he was torn between laughing at her and actually acceding to her request. Now came the hard part of getting him through the house quietly.

What would Mrs. Black think of their guest? Would she remember him? Revile him? Wake the household? Would she wake at all?

She stood up and exhaled. One thing at a time. Get Severus through the door. They'd worry about the portrait if she could get him inside. He stood up, almost immediately crowding her as she opened the gate. Odd. She would have thought he'd be rather recalcitrant, but...oh well.

/

His bare foot stepped first through the gate onto the cold concrete of the sidewalk and his first thought was how interesting the texture of the pavement was, but the longer he stood on it, the coarser it felt against his tender feet. Feet that had known only slick, waxed, marmoleum floors for the past few years. He shifted onto the spines of his feet, then to the heels, and from there onto the balls of his toes, trying to find the least painful way to walk on the pavement. Hermione walked ahead of him after checking for crossing traffic on the bricked-then-asphalted-over street.

He slipped his foot, toes first to test the texture, onto the asphalt and found the larger, rockier texture to be warmer, but a bit more difficult to traverse. He tried to find the exposed brick as he crossed the street.

Her face was scrunched in concern and some form of condemnation once he made it across the street and met her on the smooth slate steps of Number Twelve. He lifted his chin and stared down his nose at her, daring her to say anything at his lack of progress.

She said something else instead: "I need to get you some shoes. I should have already done that before making you walk across the street. My apologies."

She looked absolutely livid, but from her words, she wasn't angry at him, but more at herself. He simply stared at her. After a few moments, she glanced around, then up at the door and continued up the steps.

He followed.

As he stepped up the final step, he realized that this place was not new to him. This door had been seen before. It was not a good door to see. It held memories and pain, it held ridicule, it held obligation, and mountains of hurt. This door was calling to him, but to go inside would be to open a scabbed wound and scrape it raw again.

He dropped back a step, but Hermione reached down and grabbed his wrist. "C'mon. It's just a door."

Just a door? Was she insane?

Ha.

'Was she insane'. Who was insane? He was afraid of a door!

And yet he was.

She was right, and perhaps getting through the door would be enough to show him that it was "just" a door. He took a deep breath and watched her unlock it with her wand, thumb the latch, and push the great, groaning, heavily-carved wooden mass into the dark yawning gape of fear behind it.

His breath caught in his lungs, hung there right behind his heart as he waited for something to happen.

She tugged on his wrist and he felt pulled, as if through water.

The vestibule was dark. He could hear her breath and his shifting the air. His sped up.

She spoke. "I'm sorry, I have to do magic in this house."

He couldn't have answered. He just watched her light her wand and a second set of doors opened in front of them.

The floor creaked under her foot and he shifted away. She held on and looked back at him. "We must be quiet. The portrait needs to stay asleep."

His eyes moved to the large, shrouded painting that took up the front-facing wall, the place of honor. Snoring and muttering issued from behind the dark coverings and he looked back to Hermione. She offered a small smile.

He looked around the foyer as she started moving them slowly away towards a tiny hall. There wasn't much to see, but there were so many echoes beating at his mind, his skin, his nerves...He got a quick impression of blots of furniture and a clock before they entered the hallway completely.

Completely.

"Speed up."

She looked back at him. "What?"

He started shaking and he kept looking at the pale, textured, tin ceiling. The walls were too close. TOO CLOSE. "Get me out of here, this place is too small, _please_." He pushed up against her, trying to make her go faster and thank God, thank Merlin, thank Dadga or Cerunnos or whomever the hell was listening that she did.

Dear God, was the hallway _shrinking? _He could swear the walls and the ceiling were bearing down on him, brushing up to his shoulders, the runner carpet trying to trip him up and drag him down just out of spite.

He held onto Hermione tighter.

Would this fucking hallway never end? He pulled her closer. "It's getting further away, isn't it?"

"What?"

"Don't play with me!" He looked around them and both doorways were so far apart he couldn't see them in the darkness. "The doors are getting farther away from us instead of getting closer! We're stuck here!"

Stuck. He started to see little lightning flashes across his vision as his pulse heightened. Stuck. They were stuck in this never ending hallway inside this dark house with dark memories and dark echoes and he would slowly go even more insane than he already was and why the FUCK did the allow this woman to talk him into coming inside?

"Severus?"

He took a few paces back the way they came, but the darkness engulfed him. He panicked and turned back to her, her light. "Take me back. Take me back outside. Now."

She held up both her hands. "We're halfway there, Severus. You just have to trust me."

He reached out and grabbed her upper arms. "You're lying. You're just saying that so I'll be stuck here."

She shook her head and stared at him. "No, why would I do that?"

"You don't want me to go back to the Safe Place. You took me away from it, you don't want me to go back!"

And she had the audacity to look offended! He rolled his eyes.

"Nonsense! I want you to be safe! Severus! Look at me!"

He did, but this time, this time he remembered. Brown Eyes! Hermione was Brown Eyes! "Brown Eyes..."

She smiled. "Yes, dearest, I have brown eyes." Something clicked in that brain of hers, " And you have eyes in your safe place, don't you?"

"Yes."

"Were my eyes in your safe place?"

"Yes."

"Then wouldn't it be logical that I would want you safe?"

He couldn't answer her. Her logic was correct, but something was off...

"Tell me about the other eyes."

How did she know, "Other eyes?"

"You told me the stars remind you of eyes. They couldn't be mine, so I'm assuming there are others."

"Potter's."

She looked curious. "Oh?"

"And someone like him."

"Ah."

That response was more than curious. It spoke of knowledge. "Do you know who that is?"

She smiled a sad smile. "Most likely, but we'll save that for later when you've calmed down a bit." She backed away from him and he dropped his grip on her arms. "Feeling better?"

He was surprised to nod 'yes'.

She slipped her hand into his and pulled him down the corridor. It was only a few steps before he started to feel it close in upon him again, tighter and tighter, the wallpaper reaching for him, the sconces plucking at his clothes. He stubbed his toe on another bit of carpet runner and fell into the wall with a 'thump'.

Somehow Hermione's concern for him only made his nerves wind tighter. It felt as if the darkness behind him held a hand outstretched, ready to clamp down and rip him backwards, off into the fog of nightmare swirling around the edge of consciousness.

He edged up on her again, pushing her faster as his mind started screaming that the ceiling was just about to crush down behind him. Something cracked in the walls and he jumped, pushed her forward.

They reached the door together and flung it open but...

Shite.

Out of the Frying Pan...

They were in the Kitchen.

He knew this place. His mind quickly assimilated what reason he had for being in this room before and his entire body clenched in fear.

The hallway still twitched its claws at his back as the Kitchen sank its dark maws into his gut. There, at the head of the trestle table, stood the memory of a man, the Blue Eyes, and never did those Blue Eyes hurt so much as they did now!

There was pain...oh, such pain! Betrayal, but by whom? Did he betray this man? His heart wanted to climb out of his chest and die, pumping on the table in front of his mind's manifestation.

He backed away from the table, shaking so hard he couldn't see clearly. His head hit the corner of the door behind him and it slammed closed. The sound rippled through his ears and broke the ghost image of Blue Eyes like so much smoke. He cried out and closed his eyes, leaning back against the door and feeling his way to the hutch he knew would be beside it.

"Severus?"

He knew her voice didn't belong in this memory, this thought-line, but she was there. It was wrong, this was wrong! He snatched up a mug from the hutch and hurled it blindly, "NO!" It shattered against the opposite wall.

She screamed, but it was a short-lived thing, surprise more than fear.

He sporadically shook his head. Why was he doing this? Tossing coffee cups wouldn't get him outside, now would it? And he desperately needed to get out of here. NOW.

He scanned the room for the door he knew would take him out and finally found the frilly curtains hung there ages ago across the window panes in the dutch-door. He lunged.

The handle! Where was the fucking handle! "Granger get this goddamned door open for me right this fucking instant!" He clawed at the corners of the jamb, ripped the stupid frills down from their ridiculous cafe rod.

"Euf!" She actually elbowed him and hunkered under his right elbow to get to the door. He vainly tried to drag a breath into his body.

"I wouldn't have had to do that if you'd just calm down!" She unlocked the door with her wand and pushed it open just as his breathing evened out.

Their position was such that they stumbled slightly at the change in angle but he immediately felt the calm, cool air on his face and took a deep breath. It wasn't enough.

He needed to see them. He needed to see the stars. He pushed her down and nearly tripped over her as he ran down the porch steps and into the rear garden proper.

He was so intent on trying to find the sky through the overgrown tree branches and their millions of leaves that he stepped right into something very, very sharp. "Ouch!" The pain slammed his whirling mind to a halt with its only focus to relieve it.

"Serves you right, pushing me down like that."

He looked up from inspecting his foot, behind him to Hermione as she descended the steps with an equally intent expression on her face. Was there anything he could possibly say to explain how he felt at that moment?

No.

He went back to pulling burrs from the sole of his foot. He hissed as the last one tugged at the delicate flesh at the arch.

"Come on, I'll show you the path...which I would have done if you'd allowed me to, before."

He grimaced at her and followed down the barely-visible stone path amongst browned ferns and leafy debris. Lifting his gaze to peer into the depths of the garden, he tried to make out what he could.

No much was visible through the tangle of vines and bushes.

"_This_ is a garden?"

"Hush. No one has the ability or time to take care of it, so Harry keeps a path clear to the hammock and that's it. Of course, with you back...and if the boys' last mission was successful, then we'll have a bit more time on our hands. That will only leave one war victim on the missing persons list."

She turned around on the path and seemed to smile at him in the dark. He blinked, perplexed. "Have you really been spending all your efforts of the past few years looking for people like me?"

She walked back to him. "Severus, you weren't dead, you were _missing_. Things were happening, amazing things that shouldn't have happened, right in front of our eyes and when we went back for you, you were _gone._ Wizards don't disappear when they die, and we sure as _hell_ weren't going to let any loonies desecrate your body if we could help it."

She still didn't understand. He scrubbed his hair with his right hand. "No. No, I did. I did, I died. Why do you say I didn't? I did, I did!"

His hand flew between them and she grabbed it. "I know you did! Dammit, I watched you! I cold-bloodedly watched you die and I relived that moment every night in my nightmares for months! I know that! But Tonks came back and Remus came back! You weren't in the Shrieking Shack when we went back for you."

"You...watched..."

Revulsion swept across her face. Was he that repulsive to her? "Nagini. Severus, you had been bitten by Nagini on the jugular. How were we supposed to save you?" He backed away, she followed. "You shoved those memories at us and demanded Harry to look at you, then asphixiated on your own blood. I watched you _die_, but here you are!" She pulled his hand tighter to her. "I don't know how, but _here_ you _are_! And so is Tonks and Remus! They think their child has wild magic that brought them back but now I'm not so sure. Why would Teddy bring you back, too?"

He was trying, valiantly, to follow her speech and there was so much to digest from it, the most important being, "They died, too?"

She threw her hands up and walked away down the path a few steps. "Oh, God, I need to sit down." She turned back and pointed to him. "So do you. Come on. It's not much farther."

Slipping the hand she beckoned him with around his elbow, she escorted him around a bend to a pergola heavily overgrown with vines, some brown, some green, and beneath it, a white rope hammock.

"It's..."

"I know. Harry comes out here to think every once in a while, but that's about it."

He looked around at the...lack of presence the place had. It...rather suited him. "No one else?"

"I tried, but I'm a terrible gardener. Plants are wonderful, but my hands are all brown thumbs for me."

He looked down at her. "Hmm."

"Yes, I know-it-all, but can't do-it-all. Say what you will, but at least there's the hammock. Here, I'll hold it steady while you climb on." She moved to do just that.

"Climb? I do not climb."

Her smirk was challenge enough. "How do you know? You might have and just don't remember."

"Lovely, Miss Granger, but I would know if I did something so completely undignified as that."

"Are we already back to formalities, Mister Snape?" She smiled sweetly and gestured to the hammock.

He ground his back teeth. "Just hold the blasted thing."

"Right-o."

As soon as he sat on the thing, it sank and dipped dramatically to one side. He eyed her suspiciously but she simply nodded encouragingly. He lifted one leg, then the other and scooted—He! Scooted!-into the center of the contraption.

She moved to the other side and started to do the same thing. "And just what do you think you're doing?" He slipped his fingers through the ropes as the hammock swung dangerously to the side.

"Well you didn't expect me to sleep on the ground, now did you?"

"I'd rather thought you'd go back inside."

"And if you need something? How will you get help if you can't even get in the door without breaking down into a gibbering mass?" She lay down facing him and propped her feet near his shoulder.

He sneered at that. "Thank you for pointing that out. Will you at least remove your shoes? They're very pointy."

"Certainly." He had to grab onto the ropes again as the thing rocked violently. He barely noticed, but she did something with her wand before slipping her feet back up onto the swing.

"I thought I had asked you not to perform magic in front of me."

"Well, I thought a Freshening Charm wouldn't be remiss as I've been wearing leather shoes with nylon stockings for over fifteen hours now."

He suddenly noticed his feet were up against her shoulder as well. He pulled them back, only to have her grab onto an ankle.

"Well, you've not been wearing shoes, now, have you?"

Her hand was hot on his skin. "No." He stared at where it disappeared under the cuff of his pyjama bottoms. With a gentle tug, she coaxed his leg out straight. Could she tell he was blushing in the night?

"So, you don't have to worry about foot sweat. In fact," She leaned over and lightly sniffed.

His eyes flared and he yanked his foot, but she held firm. "This is highly undignified."

"Not to mention surprising. I'm stronger than you now. And your foot smells like...Oh."

She quickly let his foot go and smoothed the cuff down over his ankle, then tucked her hands between her thighs.

He blinked. "My foot smells like 'Oh'?"

She grimaced. "Sorry. Your foot smells like grass. Which isn't surprising as you were wallowing in it for most of the day."

Wallowing? He'd not been...alright, perhaps at the beginning he might have been. He sneered. "Quite. So why do you seem surprised?"

She tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. "You—um—nothing. Something from the year Professor Slughorn taught Potions. That's all."

The year that—she was upset that his feet smelled like grass? She looked at him again, "You should try to meditate." At that, she settled her head back against the ropes and crossed her arms at her chest, wriggling her feet together under his arm. He lifted that arm in surprise, then put it back down so his armpit would keep her feet warm. It was his request that removed her footwear, after all.

He watched her face soften as she relaxed a bit and folded his hands across his abdomen. She looked so much younger than he felt. How old was he, anyway? That question had never crossed his mind these past two years. He simply...was.

And why did it seem to bother him that there was an age difference between them? What did it matter?

He swallowed the last bit of pertinent information she'd fed him: She had been one of the last people to see him alive.

No matter what she said, he knew he had died. That was something certain. A knowledge that could not be circumvented no matter how he tried to turn it or walk around it. The man that lay in this hammock should not be here.

So why was he? How?

He sought the sky, answers, peace, but there was none to be had. She slept on, oblivious.

* * *

><p>AN: Thank you so much to everyone who's encouraged this fic! It's starting to get rather personal, so please review and let me know what you think! :)

_Just for fun, songs that inspired me while writing this chapter_:

Kate Bush: Running up that Hill; This Woman's Work

The Killers: Goodnight, Travel Well (This song *really* inspired Severus' POV)

Danny Elfman: Wolf Suite Part One (The Wolfman Soundtrack); Main Titles (Sleepy Hollow Soundtrack)

Hans Zimmer/James Newton Howard: Watch the World Burn (Dark Knight Soundtrack)

Mychael Danna: Breach Soundtrack

Nathaniel Mechaly: Taken Soundtrack


	6. Chapter 6

Meditate.

How was he supposed to bloody meditate with her warmth cradled along one side of his chilled body throwing his temperature-balance off?

—With her words and deeds and eyes slicing through his thoughts like a bronze blade?

He shuffled his arms a bit more comfortably across his abdomen and sneered at her sleeping form. How! How was he supposed to...Well, he damned-well couldn't. All of his meditation techniques centered around deprivation and focus, neither of which was possible in his current state or location.

And she was sleeping. _How_ was she sleeping?

He sighed and cast his gaze about the unkempt autumn garden for any sort of answer, to any of his questions.

Shadows crept slowly across the night and the bricked wall surrounding the garden. Dark, leafy fronds curled like gnarled fingers, grasping at the flora dying beneath it as those same fronds were overtaken by great, choking vines of ivy that draped over anything beneath it like a heavy cloak. The overall appearance was a hide-and-seek game of mythical creatures—Adhene—that his mind made of the shadow-shapes, coming to steal a wife or child hidden in the landscape.

Ha. Adhene. Now there was a bit of knowledge from his previous life. He knew the creatures wouldn't fit in his shaded fantasy, either, especially as he watched his—what? Companion? Duenna?—sleep opposite him. The mythical Manx fairy ignored anyone with a merciful quest and Hermione certainly was no babe or wife.

Severus shook his head free of wandering nonsense and tried to stare at nothing, still incredulous that she was able to steal sleep. It seemed as if she'd stolen that from him as well, but for some gods-forsaken reason, he couldn't quite hold _that_ candle beneath her feet.

His breathing gradually evened out and that nothing that he so intently focused on became a blurred and opaque movement as his eyes dried without their blinking lubrication and a breeze bent the branching canopies above him. He blinked his vision back to normal and sought out the source of light, a pinprick or a gleam in the corner of his eye. A streetlight.

Finally, as he rested his head back against the twined cotton ropes, another gentle, chilly breeze showed him the twinkling of a star through a break in the boughs and his eyes latched on the dark spot like a focus.

He immediately sharpened on the idea with alacrity. At last! A focus!

Breathing deeply to calm himself again—in, out...in...out—he settled his mind and sought the quiet place in his mind that held—

Something zipped by his vision, something dark, flying—probably a bat or a bird—but his concentration was now completely broken.

He gritted his teeth and tried again.

Breathing. Stillness. Peace. Quiet.

Chirping.

_Bollocks_.

He glared in the general direction of the shapeless bush the insect noise came from and it instantly stilled. Hmph. Bully to know he was still good at something.

His brows knitted at that problematic thought. Would he ever truly know what he _used_ to be like? Should that be his concern, or should he simply focus on the future? Was he brought back to live from here forward, or to correct the past? How could he correct a past he could not remember?

Hmm. Well, at least, not completely. He looked at his hammock-companion as she shifted slightly in her apparent sleep. How could she have possibly fallen asleep so quickly?

A group of chimney sweeps caught his attention and twittered in a line from one roof to another.

How was he supposed to meditate with all this noise? Looking back at her, he remembered her promise to help him meditate. A promise she was not fulfilling by sleeping. He exhaled and tapped Hermione's leg.

She startled awake, but moved no more than by a jerk of her head, interestingly enough. "Hrmph?" If someone had done the same to him, he'd have hexed them before...

Dammit, how could he know that? He didn't...couldn't. Just like he couldn't meditate and it was like chewing glass to admit it. "I can't do it." Before she asked the obvious, as she was in no state of mind to risk intelligence, he clarified, "Meditate. I can't focus enough to do it."

She blinked and stifled a yawn behind the back of her hand. "_You_ can't _do_ something? Someone call the _Prophet_. Preposterous." She closed her eyes and settled back, mumbling as she did so, "Why don't you just go to sleep and we'll try in the morning? You're probably just tired."

He blinked. Impertinence! Perhaps he'd been wrong about her merciful intentions and the Adhene had reason to come for her: selfish, lazy, inconstant _child_ that she was. He tapped her leg again.

"What." She sighed and glared between very narrowed lids at him.

"Are you so easily led from your helpful intentions when your own needs are not so readily met?"

She shifted into more of a sitting position and pushed a bit of hair out of her face, hammock swinging dangerously as he grappled the edges to keep from falling. "Regardless of what you may think, Severus, sleep is a general requirement of the human condition."

He pulled one hand free from its white-knuckled hold on the ropes and pointed to himself. "Yes, and that is something which I will not be able to reach unless I can meditate."

"I'm not stopping you." She groused. How could she grouse at him? He was the offended party, here, not she!

Time to point that out! "Nor are you helping me. As you said you would."

She stared at him and huffed, apparently thinking this over. "You won't let me sleep unless I help you meditate, will you?"

He arched both brows at her amazing observational skills. Truly deductive reasoning at work, here.

She snorted as if she'd heard him. He blinked but she responded before he could. "Alright. Hang on a sec." She wriggled around to reach her pocket and pulled out her wand. He tensed. Did she have no respect for his wishes at all?

"Hush. This will help."

Unless she was able to cast a spell to send him directly there, he was highly doubtful. "How?"

"_Lumos._" She held the lit wand between them. "Use this as a focus and I'll talk you through the rest."

He eyed the pale, pulsating wandlight doubtfully. "Talk?"

"You'll see. It's something I've done myself to find answers to difficult problems, only I get someone else to talk me through it." Something nagging in the back of his brain told him she'd always been this irritatingly autocratic with her methods.

He narrowed his eyes. "This isn't a problem, or a question, Hermione." Adding particular emphasis to sneering her name, he continued as if she were a rather dense pupil, "It's a _place_. It is a part of my _mind_."

She rolled her eyes at him—the gall of the witch!—and sighed, "I know, I know. If it doesn't work, we'll try something different, alright?"

She'd tried to soften her dismissal of his doubt with a small smile, lax though the effort was.

He pursed his lips and sighed out his nose. What choice did he have?

Watching her finger slide infinitesimally up her wand, he observed the light ampering up the tip by a fraction. Something about her was there for him to trust. Why else did his mind remember her as one of the few during his breach with sanity?

All he could think at the moment was: She'd bloody well better be good at this.

He stared hard at her and she did nothing but return the glare.

"Very well. Proceed."

He couldn't decide if he should be amused or irritated that she actually preened—birdlike—with a slight smile and leaned forward a few inches. "As I said, focus on the light as I talk you through the scenario."

Slowly, deliberately, he relinquished control of his locked gaze with hers to drop his line of sight down to the wandlight between them.

"Relax as much as you can."

He sighed again through his nose and settled as comfortably as the hammock would allow with two people.

"Now, I want you to picture a path. Build it in your mind, what does it look like, how does it feel beneath your feet, what surrounds it?"

He kept his sight on the light and obediently thought of an uneven sandstone path, broken and pocked, gorse and hogweed nearly obscuring it.

"When you have your path, walk down it. Enjoy the walk. Relax as you do so and clear your mind as much as you can. You're enjoying your walk."

Was she going to talk the entire time? "Not with your nattering."

"Hush and take the path, Professor."

He felt himself arch his right brow but kept his eyes closed. "Formalities, Miss Granger?"

"Path. Walk. Or I go back to sleep."

"Very well." He mentally brushed through the flowering weeds and looked down at the foreign-but-not black, leather-soled shoes that scuffed against the sandstone. He was entirely clothed in black, it seemed. Hmm.

The path continued in its redundancy for several steps and in its repetition, he found, much to his surprise, the quietude he'd been searching, rather than the annoyance of a recurring scene he'd expected.

"Up ahead, you will see the path fork. If you take the right fork, you will come to a building. If you take the left fork, you will come to a person. Both will be favored and respected. Which do you choose?"

His mind conjured the fork as well as a large, hulking shadow outlined with parapets and turrets in the swirling mist to his right. The left held a maze of boxwood and yew in an intricate knot, the center of which held the person she suggested.

The place held information but the person held answers. "I choose the person."

Her voice filtered into his mind, almost far-away, now. "Follow the path as you will to the person. Ask them the question you most desire answered and they will answer it, but once they answer the question they will have to leave, so ask carefully."

His steps on the path faltered and he turned back to look behind him. Nothing but heathered moor and Giant-thrown stumps of granite there now. No turning back.

Why did that feel familiar? Achingly so?

Every step seemed to lengthen the distance between him and his goal, but he continued, even when he had to backtrack through a maze that, by all rights, he should have known impeccably. It was of his own design in his own mind, after all.

So his own mind wished to occlude him from his goal? Why?

Was it because he didn't want to know the answers or because he didn't want to know who was going to give him the answers?

He remembered the kitchen incident with a pang of anxiety somewhere beneath his sternum but kept his focus on finding his way through to the center of the maze. It was _that_ important to get to his Safe Place, now. He peered over the hedges into the gloaming mist and half-heartedly wished he'd chosen the right path instead of the left.

With another nostriled sigh, he forged ahead, cursing his own mind for inventing such a ridiculous occlusion as a maze-knot.

He paused halfway through the next step.

This _was_ his own creation.

He looked at the waxy leaves shimmering in the evening air and wondered if he really should force the situation.

Should he?

Well, it might take forever to wend through this fencing, so why not?

At that thought, the ground grumbled and snaked the roots of boxwood and yew directly in front of him, away. There was suddenly a clear, ten-pace path between Severus and the person that held his answers.

They stared silently at one another, one ever-patient and omnipotent, the other so full of questions he had immense difficulty choking down the outpouring of so much to the one most important thing he needed right now: information on how to get to his Safe Place.

"Severus."

His heart slammed into his spine, wracking against the knobs of bone and asking to rupture. The construct had initiated conversation? If he responded, would he disappear without telling him what he wanted to know?

"Severus, while our Miss Granger is indeed rather clever, she does not, as you and others have put it, 'know it all'. You can talk to me."

His brain shuddered, numb, for once. "H-how?" Was that his voice? So broken...gravelled. Not the weapon he'd spent decades refining...

The aged man smiled kindly over his half-moon spectacles and closed the distance between them, his suede slippers toeing out from underneath his heavy, silk lavender robes that caught on the hogweed at his knees. "The same way you so deftly cleared the obstruction between us, my boy. I am a part of your mind."

He stopped advancing when the two of them were close enough for Severus to smell...lemons? He wanted to close his eyes to analyze the complex scent more, but weren't his eyes already closed? Would this scene disappear if he did so?

Even as his doubts tumbled through his mind, he realized the churning, wailing abyss of questions he wanted to ask this man had suddenly vanished.

A low hum thread below his hearing, deep in his brain, something he knew to be a sign of stress or anxiety. He'd come here for something so specific, but how could he possibly choose just one question to ask this man? And in that panicked thought, every question he'd had, fled.

So he stared.

Thoughts of what happened in the kitchen less than an hour ago shot fear up his spine. There was something so...avuncular...so comforting and necessary about this man.

So why was there such a complete and utter feeling that somewhere along the lines, Severus had betrayed their relationship...broken it beyond repair? Why would he do such a thing when somewhere else in his mind, he knew that he would have fought with claws, hooves, teeth, and demons to keep that so very singular person in his life close and protected?

Severus knew with blinding truth that at one time, Trust was the hardest thing to win with him as well as the last thing he gave out. This man—this reflection—would have to mean something _deeply_ to him to hold such an opinion.

Why would he have betrayed that? How _could_ he have betrayed that?

One dark word rippled between them—_Voldemort_—and the old man's countenance changed. Love, patience, friendship and mentorship altered immediately into a hardened, gimlet flash of steel, a tightened, calculating pull on the lips.

Had the Dark Lord forced Severus to betray this man?

No...

Some things...some words or statements ring falsely. This was one of them.

So, had Severus betrayed him...

...willingly?

He swallowed, instantly wanting to deny this, needing it to be refuted.

The man before him relaxed his aggressive and shrewd expression into one of shame...

Sadness.

He shook his head 'No' at Severus.

His mind cast about for some explanation to this confusion. If he'd not been coerced and he'd not done it willingly, and there was absolutely no possibility he could have done something this guilt-ridden by accident, "Well, old man, you can't possibly expect me to believe you wanted me to-"

He was interrupted by the other man darting forward and pushing him backwards, hard enough to shove him, make him lose his footing and fall into-

Water?

He rested, suspended in confusion and disbelief in the murky, cool stillness, starting to enjoy the peaceful buoyancy until he remembered he really should be trying to breathe. The surface would be good for that. He kicked to the surface and automatically dipped backwards into the water to float his long hair out of his face.

The dome of the gold and silver arboretum reflecting serenely above the black water shocked him.

"My safe place!" His gravelled and emotional voice echoed back to him from the fluttering aspen and beech leaves. Breathing faster and spinning around in the water, he took in his surroundings, mostly surprised that everything was exactly as it should be...

Except...

His eyes finally landed on the centerpiece of his fantasy.

The only difference from before was that the barren and barkless oak in the middle of the island held no jeweled eyes in its upper branches. There was no crystalline, pulsating, fractured light calling to him from their brilliant facets. It was...empty.

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><p>AN: Sorry for taking so long to post this! RL is killing me! :P I know it's short, but necessary and hopefully the next will be up sooner than this one was. Thank you, everyone, who has been so very encouraging and please be patient through the things that seem out of place. They actually *do* have their places. BIG HUGS to Yiggersentia who is always there for me. PLEASE REVIEW!


	7. Chapter 7

A/N: Brava to Darque Hart who found the Easter Egg in the previous chapter ;) It shall "swift"-ly come up again LOL

Huge thanks to the warm responses I've been getting from ALL of you!

As always, Yiggersentia is my muse :)

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><p><strong>Chapter Seven<strong>

Since their world was rather neatly reduced down to the glow of witchlight from her wand, Hermione watched him, his pupils shifting back and forth, slightly bulbous behind his lavender-veined lids, shadows raking down the harsh contours of his tired face. His head tilted ever-so-slightly from one side to the next as the mental suggestion of looking from left to right took over his motor reflexes. She knew the feeling, having consulted this progression meditation, herself, for two of her most difficult inner questions. Ending her relationship with Ronald had been one of them, her decision to stay with the Order after the War had been the other.

Her attention was promptly diverted back to Severus when he announced his choice to follow the person along his path.

Interesting. She almost broke her own rules and suggested to him that he might reconsider, but if this is what he felt he needed, then so be it. He might be in for answers to things he didn't want to know or perhaps couldn't handle yet, but who was she to stop him, really? Well, at least there was one way to suggestively regulate the progression. "Follow the path as you will to the person. Ask them the question you most desire answered and they will answer it, but once they answer the question they will have to leave, so ask carefully."

It was hard not to laugh aloud as soon as his face dropped into a childish scowl, but she professionally kept quiet, allowing him to take the path he needed. She dropped the light of her wand down infinitesimally until it was barely an ember of blue-white light glowing at the tip and watched his expression fade from a scowl of petulance to one of concentration.

Was that a touch of consternation? Confusion? His rather unkempt, dark eyebrows swept together on his forehead and his nostrils flared. Fascinating. The light pulsed softly between them in time with her heartbeat as she kept vigil over his inner travel and from the expression on his face, he seemed to be having a hard time reaching the goal at the end of his path. She could nearly track the nervous energy coursing through his body, needing to be spent in pacing or something equally worry-wearing.

It would be an obvious guess who Severus would have gone to for advice in the _past_, but who would he go to now? Would Dumbledore show up and completely confuse him? Panic him? Her nerves shot needles of fear down to her fingertips and the wandlight flared a slight bit as she realized a possibility: Severus had no memory of killing Dumbledore, did he? Or if he did, it was subconscious and perhaps he might reveal that memory to himself...

Her eyes rounded in horror. What would that do to him?

She shifted her seat and watched him ever-closer, now.

He seemed to be fitful, as if still not finding what he searched for, but there was a pause that blanked the aggravation from his face, a shift of his jaw no more than a centimeter to the right and suddenly, complete and utter closure.

His lips parted, his mandible shuddered, then he clenched his jaw. Inhaled.

Exhaled.

She breathed in time with him, watching every nuance anxiously. Was he interacting with Dumbledore, or maybe she was overreacting? Maybe he would seek out someone else...

Oh, right, absolutely, someone _else_ in the Wizarding world that represented the answers to everything. Even she had spoken to Dumbledore during one of her meditations. _Not_ the Ronald one.

Severus rippled, literally, alongside her and she shifted uneasily in the hammock, careful not to disturb him. His breathing was starting to become labored.

She brought the wandlight closer to him and watched the pulse at his throat. It was beating beneath his skin like a caged animal, sporadic and hard.

Not good.

She shifted her legs off the edge a bit and leaned closer to him.

His head jerked to the left once, quick, hard, short. He swallowed.

His breathing became more intense and his impressive nostrils were literally palpitating with his struggle. His lip curled, tremored in distaste, showing a few of his teeth before clamping down in another molar-cracking clench which flexed muscles over his ears at his temples.

His pulse was racing now.

This...this couldn't be good.

She wondered whether she should wake him and had just reached her wand-free hand over to touch him when he jerked.

She jerked her hand back but brought her wandlight to his face and thought perhaps he might wake up, but no. He lay completely still, eerily quiet.

Hermione looked down at his throat, then to his chest, sweeping her wandlight as she went and brightening it even more, searching in vain for vital signs.

Okay, now it was her turn to have palpitations!

Wasn't he breathing?

"Severus." She dropped her free hand to his chest and pressed, shook, tapped. "_Severus_."

He rolled a bit closer to her as she jostled the hammock when she crawled into a better position to lean over him and, still gripping her wand, she pressed into his chest with both hands, "Severus! Wake up!"

Her mind raced. Had he had a heart attack? Maybe he'd merely passed out? What should she do? _'Think! For God's Sake, Hermione-girl, you're the Brightest Witch of Your Age!_'

So why couldn't she think of what to do? She grabbed the lapels of his borrowed coat and shook him gently, calling to him, "Severus."

She could feel herself start to panic. Tears were forming and her hands were making her wand give off uneven, shaky light. Reaching up to brush her hair out of her face, she took a broken breath and thought through Muggle and Magical possibilities. According to St. Mungo's and the Ministry, Severus was dead. Only by the grace of the Order were they able to even _look_ for him. Muggle Emergency Personnel would have a picnic over his lack of identification since, again, he was supposed to be dead, even in his non-magical persona. A brief thought wriggled in the back of her mind about Hestry, but she pushed it away and looked up at the house.

Harry and Ronald would be able to help her move him inside if needed, but they weren't much help, medically. Tonks and Remus had their own troubles to worry with since it was a Waxing Gibbous Moon at ninety percent.

It really was up to her and she couldn't even remember her childhood lessons in cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

It was up to her...she looked down at him and touched his chest, his cheek, his forehead, whispered, "Oh, God. No, don't let me lose you now, please. Please. Not when I've just found you again."

His mouth went slack and opened, but not with expression...the exact opposite. The urge to scream in fear and frustration mounted deep in her gut but she swallowed it whole.

She could feel her face scrunch up in emotion and she slapped him on the chest with both hands, leaning over him more. Tears were running down her face, dropping onto him, but who fucking cared? She slapped, then clenched her hands, moaned his name just above a whisper, cringing at the thought of giving up on him and tried to think. Think!

She shook her head as the only thing she _could_ think of was him sneering her down at her in second year, "_I see no difference_."

He had been so cruel to her, to them, for their own good...

For their own good...

Well, then, at least it was an idea. She gathered her fear into anger and directed her shaking hands to his lapels again, yelling tightly to him, "Severus Snape, you've never gone the easy way out of anything in your life, you miserable sod, so don't you _dare_ go making things easy on yourself now by backing out just when I _save_ your arse!"(1)

With a particularly violent jerk of his coat, his head came up off the hammock and cracked back down against the wooden cross-brace, eliciting an expulsion of breath with a slight moan of pain.

She blinked and let go, "Thank God."

Her free hand came up to his face, tapping his cheek rapidly as she chanted "Wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up..."

It was almost alien to see such black eyes open in the midst of such a pale face in the night, but it was the most beautiful thing she'd seen and without thinking, she leaned forward and hugged him. "Thank goodness you're okay." Her voice cracked and there was a lump in her throat that was holding back the waterworks, but _he was okay._

His lungs were working beneath her weight...oh. He wasn't responding to her hug.

"Erm, sorry, but I'm just," she lifted off of him and realized she'd been..._straddling_ him. The blush that bit into her cheeks was only slightly painful compared to what he must think of her right now. Oh God.

She moved away as best she could, murmuring, "I'm just glad you're alright. And I'll be backing away now."

His expression was completely lacking. He just watched her as she disentangled herself and curled up in her corner of the hammock. Of course, he did grab the sides a few times as the swing shifted more than he was comfortable with, but overall...he just stared at her.

Blankly.

She said the only thing she felt she could, "I'm sorry."

He blinked. Was this what it was like under the gaze of a Sphinx? Or perhaps something a bit more apt...perhaps a fairy god that had no human emotions? Cerunnos? Cromm Crúaich? She smirked smallishly to herself and remembered Cromm's other name: Crom Dubh. Black Crooked One.

That one would do.

She curled in on herself as the adrenaline of her fear wrapped itself around her body again, but steeled herself to look up at him. "H-how are you feeling? You scared me there, I thought you'd had a heart attack or something."

When he just opened his mouth a bit, closed it, then opened again, staring at her as if she'd grown a new appendage on her forehead, she began to fear that perhaps it was something a bit more in line with what such an apparent shock to the system might create.

He hadn't had a pinstroke, had he?

Her concern returned tenfold and she leaned forward. In her lowest voice, earnest and without any possibility of a mocking tone so he'd take her seriously, she asked, "_Can_ you answer me?"

He blinked at her, drew a shaky breath and in a very un-Snape-like, uneven tone, responded, "I haven't completely lost my senses, madam, though I _am_ beginning to wonder at _your_ capabilities."

If she looked beyond the tone and expression, the sentiment was very much in place with what she knew of him, so therefore, he seemed to be a bit shaken, but none the worse for wear.

She breathed a soft sigh of relief and smiled at him. "As I said, you gave me a bit of a fright and I'm just glad you're still here."

"I-"

He started to say something, and she leaned forward even more. "Yes? Do you need me to get you anything?"

He stared at her, long and...dare she say longingly? The raw emotion blinked away in a heartbeat and he was back behind his stoic facade. "I think you were right that I just need some sleep. Good night."

She blinked. That was 'It'? He folded his arms over his abdomen again and turned his body slightly away from her.

Well.

She couldn't have been told more clearly that her efforts on his behalf were only marginally appreciated and that her feelings on the subject were not needed.

Fantastic. She must have just fancied the bit of agreeable emotion between them.

_'He nearly dies on me and I succeed in alienating him even further_.' How was she supposed to help him now?

_'Nox'_

Making sure not to touch him more than absolutely necessary, and casting a warming charm on her clothes (if he wanted one, he could very well ask for it, as proven) she faced away from him and stared off into the hulking shadows of overgrown vegetation that grew in clumps and stumbles, choked with vines and shored with unplanned saplings.

Maybe...maybe she was just tired. It was no telling how late and she hadn't gotten much sleep the night before, so she should just...take her own advice and go back to sleep.

The only problem, as she lay there, staring off into the half-acre abyss of magically enhanced and uncontrolled verdure, was that her mind repeated the scene in her mind of her concern, her relief when he awakened, hugging him, and watching those oubliette eyes open when she was afraid they would never open again. And it wasn't so much that remembering each of these things was a problem. No. The worst of it was realizing she was sitting astride him and the absolute shock written across his face when he realized the same. She shuddered at the memory, tightened her eyes closed and hugged her waist more closely.

She _really_ needed to go to the library in the morning, if only to get some time away from Severus so she could think straight.

/

As soon as she rolled away from him, he turned his head to look back at her. So many emotions were roiling within him, he had difficulty bottling and labeling them. She had obviously feared for him, felt relief when that fear had been alleviated. _Embraced_ him.

And then, to completely derail the train of thought that had him building a rather sarcastic and cutting remark to have her remove herself, he realized she was holding him _while_ _straddling_ him.

With that was the dawning of the most completely confounding emotion: _Desire_.

He'd not felt that particular emotion for so long...well, he knew at least for two years. Surreptitiously lifting one knee to hide the rather pathetic representation of his reaction from her had been pointless. She'd been rather obviously put out with herself and crawled away into her corner of the swing, never looking at anything more of him than his face.

He didn't understand. She cared enough to fear for his health, but...

Ah, who was he trying to fool? It was ridiculous to even think of anything beyond platonic with her, if only for the simple reason that he'd only known her a day.

More than that, really, but all he actually and finitely knew was this day, so what point was a drop of desire in the bucket of however much more he needed to deal with?

It certainly felt wrong, so closely coming behind the horror of finding his safe place empty of the eyes that had kept him company for so long. He barely allowed himself to close his eyes now, knowing he'd see the image of the empty tree emblazoned on the back of his eyelids.

Desperate for incontrovertible proof, for finality, he'd swum around the island, looking for any illusion, any possibility that he'd been wrong, that they were, in fact, still _there_ somehow...but no. They were gone.

The eyes that had kept him company, comfort, sanity and held whatever tenuous link to his past his mind had clutched on were...simply...gone.

What did that mean? Did he no longer need the eyes, or was something missing in the meditative formula that had taken him there? The medication, perhaps? Would he no longer be able to receive comfort from his Safe Place?

Regardless of how he felt, their absence changed everything.

Then again...he'd always had a direct link to his Safe Place from the medication. This time, he'd been led to a different place, talked to someone first...

That man held a rather large amount of significance for him, apparently, so their interactions in his mind needed to be reviewed, dissected, analyzed, boiled down to their truest form...

He remembered the shove from the old man, his former mentor...what was it that he'd tried to keep him from stating?

Severus blinked and turned his head back to face forward. Was he keeping something from himself? Obviously. Why else would he create a maze-knot occlusion? Why else would he push...himself?...away at the answer to-

Well, now that was interesting. Yes, that was the point, wasn't it?

Yes, he was quite obviously keeping something from himself, but now there was a taste of something more than betrayal...something darker. The shame and sadness in the old man's eyes held more need, more remorse than leaving an age-old friendship in tatters.

Then, there was the odd feeling that the old man had been speaking riddles when he'd said that he was a part of Severus' mind, as if he meant in more ways than one.

Dear Ancients, did he...was he...?

His heart raked up the scale of rhythm again, tried to climb out of his throat as he cautered pieces of his mental cauldron back together.

Would Hermione know if the man was still among the living?

His eyes darted back and forth across the glinting windows and shadowy porch of the nineteenth-century house before him.

She'd known of the other two. Statistics lay odds that she would know this last one, as well.

He turned himself, arching a bit over his torso, turning his head over his shoulder to see if she was asleep yet. A slight glint of wetness, reflecting from the streetlight nearby, at the eyes told him she wasn't.

Was that merely the natural dampness of her cornea, or was it something else...was she perhaps...crying?

"Hermione?" he called to her in a low voice. She could choose to answer him or not.

"I thought you wanted to go to sleep."

She hadn't turned, hadn't moved, just delivered this statement to him with a slightly acerbic tone. Was she upset with him for some reason? Hmm. Perhaps she was just as tired as she said she was or perhaps she was upset with herself. She certainly seemed so before.

The hammock lurched again—he really was starting to get used to it—as Hermione leaned up and glared at him over her shoulder. "What now? Can't sleep again? Want me to go get you some warm milk and cookies, Professor?"

He narrowed his eyes at her, vaguely interested in the idea of their serpentine body language, but focused on what had her tossing animosity at him. He couldn't think of any reason for her to be _angry_ with him.

"Aren't we mercurial? A few moments ago, that would have been a compromising position in some societies, yet now you act as the injured party. One wonders at your ability to help with regaining my own sanity when yours is so rapidly becoming in question."

She reset her elbow beneath her and if it weren't so dark, he'd have sworn her face would be reddened with indignation. It certainly spluttered through her tone. "What! I! You! If you think-"

"And here, I thought that your purpose here," he swept his right hand towards the brick house, "was to help those injured and lost by the war." He sneered. Honestly, it was almost as if she _wanted_ him to remain distant from her. "If this is an example of your...hospitality...I think I might wait until morning and find another of your group."

She inhaled sharply. "You know _what_?"

He raised an eyebrow, waiting with bated breath, of course.

"I think you should do that. Despite the fact that Remus is indisposed this time of the month, so therefore is Tonks. And despite the fact that you've succeeded in completely freaking Harry out, after me, that leaves Ronald. I'm sure you two will get along smashingly."

It took him a moment to muddle his way through her jarbled, angry speech, but he caught the idea. He snapped his eyebrows together as another memory assailed him. "You'll not be saddling me with any Weasley, madam. I'd rather be at Azkaban's mercy, however deranged it may be."

"How do you even—nevermind. That doesn't leave you many options, Professor. It's either me or Ronald right now. Take your pick."

"This is a sad ship to have so few crew among them. Why aren't there more of you?"

She stared at him long enough that he was about to offer another obligatory snark when she answered him in a distant and emotionless tone. "Everyone else had lives to build. We..." She faltered. "We didn't."

What was this? A sympathy play? "And what's that supposed to mean?"

Anger snapped into her words. "It means that our lives were fairly well spent by the end of the War. Everyone wanted to bank on our celebrity, but no one wanted to pay for it. It's not like the Muggle world where a hero can be made a millionaire just by touting a few bits of sports memorabilia. Harry had the house, Remus had the idea, and the rest of us needed something to do with our lives."

She stared at him in the darkness, the salmon-mercury streetlight bathing her in copper and black shadows. He just returned her regard, unsure of what to say, so refraining from saying anything.

"Now that's nearly over, as well." Settling back to face the garden, she huffed out, "So unless you really need something from me, Professor-"

Now that was something rather irritating, "You agreed to call me Severus, for one."

"I don't know why that makes a difference."

"Then you don't know me as well as you claim. I'm not a Professor, anymore. I never wanted that for myself and surely after what you just said, you'd understand that."

His outburst was met with silence. Honestly, had she no idea how irritating it was to be called by a title he couldn't remember ever using? Not to mention the binding ties and dislike surrounding the connotations of such a word. It choked him.

"Alright then, _Severus_, did you actually need something from me or were you just itching for an argument?"

Her growling made him want to spear some hurtful phrase at her, but, "I did, actually, need something from you."

She paused, sighed, "Alright then, what is it?"

Stiffly, he responded, "I needed to ask you about the meditation technique you used."

"And?"

Her belligerence wasn't making this any easier, but he pressed on, "What determines the person?"

She lifted herself up on her side and rested her elbow back across her waist. "Any number of things, but usually it's a manifestation of the one person who can answer the question you need answered most. People usually have a fairly good focus on what their concerns are, at least subconsciously, before they enter this style of meditation, so it's merely another part of the answer in most cases."

"Can...does the person have to be alive?"

Her posture was uneasy. "Unlike other forms of connection-magic, this is merely entering your own psyche, so the person doesn't even have to be real. You could dream up your own personal version of the Raven Queen(2) and she could advise you. You're talking to yourself, basically."

"And if...the person...let's suppose he is real. Or was..." He lost himself in trying to explain his question, but she saved him from having to,

"Who did you see, Severus?"

That was the problem, wasn't it? "I don't know. I don't know his name. Just like I didn't know yours when I awoke this morning."

"He's one of the eyes?"

Relieved she caught on so quickly, he nodded and replied, "Yes."

"What did he look like?"

"Long white hair, long white beard, spectacles...Blue Eyes."

She nodded, obviously recognizing the description. "And how did you feel about him?"

Of course she knew him, she knew them all, didn't she? How did he feel about this manifestation in his mind? He narrowed his eyes in suspicion. "Why? Am I supposed to feel something specific?" Something other than fear, devastation, betrayal, hatred, anger, love, confusion...Something that he could actually admit aloud? "What do you know of this? You obviously know who this person is, so you must also know the situation. Tell me what you know."

"I don't know if I should."

Her calm, quiet answer was just the foil that sparked his anger. "What else are you here for? You're the only one who knows them all!"

"No, I'm not. But I am the only one willing to put up with you."

Insolent! "_What_?"

She very calmly continued. "You're being rude, ridiculous, and overbearing. Very much so for someone who less than a day ago was in a medicated stasis. _Yes_, this is part of your original personality, but do you think you could tone it down a bit? I'm trying to help."

That only served to rack his anger higher. "_Help_? What have you _helped_ me with? So, you retrieved me from a mental institution. That's nothing more than any of your other group could have done."

"Do you have any idea what it was like, not knowing if you were even alive these past two years?" Ah, finally, some reaction appropriate to the situation! She'd snapped, at last. "I watched Tonks and Remus float through their lives for the first few months and then just snap-to when Teddy threw his trainer cup at them. If your situation was anything like theirs, I was terrified of what I would find when I came to you, and rightly so!" Her anger sparked a tiny bit, like her own personal Jacob's Ladder in her hair.

She continued her rant, "You could barely talk, you were on the verge of insanity _and_ you barely recognized help when it was given to you! I took you out of that place, which I'll let you know is a _sham_! I brought you here, kept you safe, let you work your way through that large mind of yours to this point where, yes, you're starting to be your old self again, but _Golly_, I'm not sure if it's worth the effort if all I'm going to get is _berated_ for it!

"_Yes_, I've helped you! I helped you through _that house_," she actually pointed, "that terrified the pants off you not but an hour ago and I _just_ helped you come back from whatever heart arrest or semi-stroke you just had! I've been here for you, _constantly_, for the majority of this day and night, only taking a tiny break to eat and use the loo. How could you _possibly_ think I'm not helping you?"

He stared at her as she dropped her rant and exhaled, satisfied that he was right and that she did, indeed care for him, and waited patiently for the opportunity to continue his line of questioning. "Who is the man, then?"

She took a deep breath and let it out, "I shouldn't bloody tell you, but his name was Albus _Dumbledore_." She tossed her head and practically growled at him, "Ring any bells?"

He immediately latched onto the past tense of her sentence. "Was?"

Her voice dropped in contrition as soon as she realized her slip, "Erm...yes."

He took a breath of his own and asked the question to confirm what she meant, "As in, no longer?"

Her voice broke at the beginning as she hesitated to answer, "He passed away three years ago."

His next question was logical, really, "How?"

She shook her head. "No."

He blinked. "What?"

"No, not tonight. It's _too much_ for tonight."

"Well, now you've got to tell me." Honestly, that was the worst sort of information to give. Just enough to dangle the carrot, then snatch it away for later.

"No, I don't. You damn near died just from talking to him. What did you talk to him about, anyway?"

He whispered the first word that came to mind. "Betrayal."

Her body reacted in shock, dropping the shoulder she was leaning on a few inches, then recovering, "How...What exactly...What conclusion have you come to so far?"

How much should he tell her since she'd been so bloody closed mouthed about her side of things? He thought about the rate of progression he had moved through today and wondered if perhaps she had the right of it and he needed to space these things out a bit. He eyed her copper and shadow form a few moments before selecting his words. "Something happened between us to force me to betray him. Something he did."

She nodded. "That's the gist of it. What...may I ask what happened?"

"That is a rather redundant question."

She lifted her hand from her hip to wave away his response, "No, what happened to make you react so violently."

Ah, how was he to answer that? He didn't know when he reacted. Perhaps he should just tell her the strangest things from his recollection? "He...shoved me into my safe place."

"What? Why?" Her concern was interesting, but he continued,

"I had just come to the point of asking him if he'd been the one to force the betrayal."

"So your body reacted to him shoving you, or to being shoved into your safe place?"

He thought about that for a bit. It was a good dissection. So which was it? Oddly enough, he remembered thinking it was odd for the old man to shove him, but not enough to cause a violent, bodily reaction unless it was subconscious. And finding himself suspended in the water had been peaceful, almost comforting. He was surprised to reply, "Neither. I was easily redirected in my mind and I was happy to be there."

She sounded as confused as he felt, "O-kay...So what happened? What made you stop breathing?"

He looked at her, trying to discern if she meant anything other than what she'd just said. He didn't know he'd stopped breathing. What would have been strong enough, emotionally and physically to cause such distress to his body? There could be only one thing, "The eyes." She looked back at him over her shoulder and he stared into what he could make of her face, "The eyes aren't there anymore. They're gone."

She spoke slowly, quietly, "How many eyes are there supposed to be?"

He responded in kind, "Four pair."

"Mine, Dumbledore's...who else?"

"Harry's." He looked away for a moment, then back to her, "The other you said you knew."

"L-" He waited for her to continue, but she just nodded.

He gritted his teeth. "You do know."

"Yes."

He inhaled, growled back at her. "Tell me."

Why was she being so circumspect with his own information? Why keep it from him? She said it was for his own good—

She responded, "If we can rest tonight, I'll do better. I'll ask Harry if I can show you something."

That sounded suspiciously like an evasion. "Why _him_?"

"Severus, it's not that I don't want to tell you, but I really think you've had enough mental blows for today. That last pair of eyes was rather important to you and Harry has something you gave him that will help. If we can wait 'til tomorrow, you'll have more answers than I can possibly give. Is that okay?"

He'd given Potter something regarding this last pair of bitter green eyes? He wanted to demand more from her, but her promise of '_more answers than I can possibly give_' rather sealed the deal for him. Except, "Why would Potter help me when, as you say, I 'freaked him out' earlier?"

"Don't worry about Harry. He's a good sort. Just give him tonight and he'll be fine tomorrow, especially if he's able to help you with this."

At that, he accepted that she knew him better and nodded, untwisting his body and laying back down to face the house. He felt her shuffle around behind him and thought back to everything she'd said, aloud and implied.

This last pair of eyes was obviously the link between himself and Potter, but Hermione felt it was too much for him to take tonight.

This young woman apparently cared for him and that was a _strange_ feeling. Not that he didn't want it, and not that there was anything wrong with _her_, really...just...

He had nothing. Up until several hours ago, he'd not even had his own name.

He quietly squelched his desires and budding thoughts that crawled through him now, resolving to be intent only on receiving her help and to push her away, at least temporarily, otherwise.

He had nothing.

He was nothing.

Nothing.

He tightened his grip between his knees and hunched in on himself. What a terrible thing to know about oneself. To be nothing.

How quickly could he _change_ that?

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><p><strong>AN: This chapter ends the night my dears! The next will dawn a new day (can you say "whew!"?) Again, I love me some REVIEWS! ;) :P**

(1) This was an homage to the drowning/recovery scene in _The Abyss_, starring Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, who coincidentally starred opposite Alan Rickman in _Robin Hood: PoT_. Those other actors don't count as much :P Especially that Kevin guy.

(2) The Raven Queen is a broad idea in mythology, but many of us know her from D&D ;) I'm thinking Hermione and the boys probably had a go at this game one long winter's month at Grimmauld Place. Ron would, of course, be utterly confused between fiction and reality, then wonder why the pieces didn't move on their own. LOL can you imagine! a Wizarding version of D&D? I can't be the first one to think of this... ;) Of course, I'm thinking that Severus thinks she's referring to The Morrigan. (cheeky grin)

Now for the unofficial soundtrack ;) (i.e.: music I wrote to and thought really worked with this story)

1. Protège Moi – Placebo (UK)

2. Dreams Made Flesh – This Mortal Coil (UK) (desperate!Hermione)

3. Pardon Me – Incubus (US)

4. Disc Wars – Daft Punk (France)

5. Song to the Siren – This Mortal Coil (UK)

6. Il Fait Gris – Mélanie Laurent (France)

7. Saving Amanda (_Taken_ Soundtrack) – Nathaniel Méchaly (France)

8. Dangerous World (_Breach_ Soundtrack) – Mychael Danna (Canada)

9. The Only Thing I Know – Gotye (this one is particularly apt!) (Australia)


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: to those of you who have reviewed anonymously, without PM capability, or just didn't log in, please accept my whole-hearted thanks for your encouragement! The same goes to everyone I have been able to respond to! Hugs to ALL! Yiggersentia is again, the best beta/muse/friend/thing evar. ;)

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><p><strong>Chapter 8<strong>

It was a strange thing to be awakened with birdsong and dawn's dewy precipitation after so long inside a dozen shades of white. He opened his eyes slowly, wondering if the aurora-and-black lace of leaves and sky above him would disappear with his dreams. Watching the colors shift with the rising sun behind the canopy was heartrendingly mesmerizing and he breathed the clean morning air in deep appreciation of his first morning _free, _knowing now that this new state was permanent_._

Such was his preoccupation with the beauty above him shifting from apricot to rose to gold and greenish-blue, that he barely noticed his hammock-companion until she shifted ever-so-slightly and made herself known, wrapping ever-so-tightly about his left leg.

He closed his eyes, bunched his eyebrows together, then opened them again. Was she truly embracing his _foot_? Severus lifted his head to get a closer view and realized that no, she was not simply embracing his foot. She was _drooling_ on it while making tiny snoring noises in the back of her throat.

How completely undignified...but then again, he was no longer the model of dignity, was he? Simply the fact that his feet were bare for her to salivate on was enough to prove that. Just to be on the safe side, he decided he should probably pull his foot away but as he tensed his thigh to tug it slowly out from underneath her, she...

He sighed through his nostrils in frustration.

She nuzzled it.

Damn.

He needed to focus on correcting his problems before allowing any ventures into satisfying baser needs and having her constantly invade his space while he was unconscious—then doing something ridiculously adorable like this—was completely unacceptable.

Completely.

He stared at her sleeping form in the growing light and the way her lips moved against the skin of his foot. It really wasn't fair to feel her like this, knowing it was actually quite innocent and that she had no intention to seduce him by dribbling on his pedal extremity.

He nearly smiled at that thought.

Yes, that _was_ rather amusing.

As the morning progressed, a bright shaft of gold shot across the garden, through the autumn detritus and over the bricked enclosure to dance across the glazed windows of the house nearby, reflecting a wide, glowing beam over them both.

It was rather enjoyable, waking up this way. Even with the unpleasant drooling, this was a thousand times removed from the hell of his life yesterday morning.

He breathed slowly to keep his calm and enjoy the sight. Might as well savor it while he could. Warm light captured the morning mist of this cold morning, heightening the contrast of light and shadow surrounding the pergola that he could now see protected the hammock from being overtaken by vegetation.

It was a truly breathtaking moment that shifted away along with the sun's passage as it arced higher in the sky, only to be replaced with other moments as the light danced through the foliage and over _her_.

It was interesting watching the light play through the leaves and over her muted coloring. Another person might describe Hermione as plain. Ha. He would have done so on many occasions, he was sure of it. Plain brown hair, plain brown eyes, plain light skin. But now...the morning light changed that idea for him. At that moment, and he rather thought for a long time to come, he'd think of her as _golden_.

Where last night's moonbeams had been lost in her hair, the sun picked out bronze tones that would do any metallurgist proud, and her skin, compared to his own sickly blueish-yellow, was a warm ivory that looked to beg for daylight's kiss. He imagined that the brown eyes so prominent in his mind for so long would burn beautifully...

Oh, great. He was waxing maudlin. What was wrong with him? Did he _want_ to torture himself? Yes, she was attractive. Yes, she seemed to be interested, but he could only offer her _problems. _Problems that needed time, effort, and focus to correct.

_Compartmentalize this and save it for later, old man. Gods, you don't even know if she's truly available._

As if on cue, the dutch door from last night creaked open on tired hinges and footsteps shuffled jauntily down the slate steps. Severus turned his head away from where he shouldn't be looking anyway to see who was coming and found himself viewing the apparent Weasley. How was he supposed to address this person?

Were they on amicable terms or otherwise? From his recollections and reactions last night, he rather thought otherwise.

They stared unblinkingly for a few moments before the young man shifted his balance with his hands in his pockets and nodded tersely.

"Professor."

Severus blinked, shifted his chin to the left, then dipped it in a wary nod of affirmation. The redhead's light gaze shifted from Severus to Hermione in perplexity, then...wistfulness? He felt the need to redirect the boy's attention. Why, he wasn't certain, but he didn't like the way he was looking at Hermione. "You are Ronald, I presume?"

Yes, that had worked to gain his attention. Calculating blue eyes snapped back to his dark ones and Severus had an overly loud thought that perhaps he'd underestimated the onus of spending time with this Weasley.

"Yeah. That's me."

He released a slow breath in contained frustration. This Ronald was obviously not a conversationalist, but he at least continued.

"So, you really lost it, eh? Your memories?"

He simply arched an eyebrow in answer. If he knew the answer already, then why ask the question?

The lad snorted and cracked a smile. "Same as always." Why did they say that? How could he possibly be the same? "So's Hermione, I see."

When Ronald tossed his chin at the sleeping form beside him, Severus brought up his other eyebrow almost as high as his other and angled his head questioningly.

"She always ends up in the weirdest places in bed," he chuckled, then caught himself as he realized he'd just implicated their relationship.

Fantastic, he thought sourly. He finally reconciled that there was nothing wrong with being attracted to the witch and along comes the confirmation it would be wrong. She was obviously already involved. Keeping his face as carefully blank as humanly possible, he started maneuvering his body to get out of the hammock and face this person head-on instead of lying down.

Unfortunately, the more he struggled with the blasted swing and Hermione's hold on his leg, the more he became entangled and just when Ronald decided it would be wise to try and help, Severus lost all balance, forcing the hammock completely over and dumping he and Hermione in a dazed pile to the wooden decking with a painful, bone-jarring impact and a squeal he assumed was from her. It most certainly wasn't from himself.

Severus groaned inwardly, realizing the bone-jarring was more on his end of the pain since Hermione had landed across him and was now recognizing she was draped over his hips from behind, face nearly planted in his crotch. Good gods, could this morning's events devolve any worse? They'd started so well.

_I probably shouldn't have said that, but I've just knocked enough wood to keep a forest full of wood sprites too distracted to do mischief.(1)_

"Here, at least let me help you up."

The Weasley-boy was unsuccessfully trying not to laugh and Severus was unsuccessfully not sending him death glares. He inwardly sighed and schooled his expression. It would do him no good to alienate Hermione's...what? Lover? Intended?

As soon as Hermione was seated back on the hammock, the redhead held a hand back out to Severus but he just couldn't take it. He frowned at the offer and stood on his own, albeit slowly. He was surprised to find himself nearly eye-to-eye with the boy—man. There weren't many wizards that could match his height and the idea that they were somehow matched was unnerving.

He pressed his hands down the front of his clothing, inhaled and straightened his spine to stand taller. After affirming at least some dignity, even knowing it was hopelessly trod beneath their feet into the pergola flooring, he looked down his nose to the two young people before him.

"I assume you've arrived outside for a reason?"

Hermione was quiet, watching him with a thinking expression that said her mind was elsewhere but Ronald shifted to stand closer to her in his black khakis and dark red tee. Seeing the two of them near each other showed their compatibility. Severus grit his teeth but maintained his stance quietly, waiting for an answer.

Ronald did not disappoint. "Yeah. Thought you could use some breakfast." He looked down at Hermione with a smile of some private joke. "Kreacher's working on it this morning, so it's decent."

She clicked her tongue disapprovingly, rolled her eyes, but smiled. "Tonks is improving, she just needs practice."

"Well, I can't handle burnt eggs and sausage. I just can't! Next time she's on breakfast duty, I'm getting Harry to take me to McDowell's again."

"McDonald's."

"Whatever. They're loads better than her crap."

"You enjoyed her cooking just fine last night, apparently."

"That's different. I was starving and it's hard to mess up salad."

They looked at each other and smiled, then said simultaneously, "But not for her." They shared a laugh, then Hermione slipped out of the hammock as if it were second nature and turned to Severus.

_Right, look to me now that you've finished your private and completely rude conversation. I'm just standing here like a Muggle garden gnome, decorating the place with no purpose._

"Severus, what do you say? Do you think you can handle breakfast? Kreacher could probably make you something simple."

Ronald's expression dropped in confusion, but he held quiet, amazingly enough. Severus remembered an incentive from last night and asked quietly, "Will Harry be there?"

He shrugged his shoulders, glanced over at the house and back. "Dunno. He's probably still there, I reckon."

Severus shifted his gaze to Hermione, who smiled quickly. "Good, I can ask him about the pensieve, then." At that little bombshell, she squared her shoulders and marched down the deck, over the leafy ground cover and up the slate steps to the kitchen door.

The men stared after her until she turned back from the door, "Well," She stared from one to the other, "Come on, don't grow roots."

Ronald sighed and smiled briefly, then stuffed his hands in his pockets and followed her.

Severus stood there, pondering Hermione's choice of words.

She was going to ask Harry about that last set of eyes...and that information was in a pensieve. He shuddered in apprehension. Did that mean the memories in the pensieve...no.

It would be a very far chance that the memories would be his own...

Wouldn't it?

Oh, but what would that mean if they were? Would they unlock other memories by simple association? Would they set off a cacophonous chain of mental fireworks to untether his mind?

It was an interesting enough prospect to make him overlook the fact that everyone was inside and he was not. The fact that he was expected to be inside with them.

Taking in a last look around the garden for anchoring, he knew he'd have to get closer to the house to get this information. Surely Hermione hadn't forgotten so soon his fear from last night? He stepped cautiously closer, one foot at a time, pausing to look around him every other step to gauge exactly how close he was. There might have been thirty paces or so between him and the apparent goal but it felt like an ocean.

He'd just have to take it one step at a time.

/

"Harry?" Softly knocking on the parlor door, Hermione listened for a moment to a slight _buzz, pat, buzz, pat_ that told her Harry was playing with his snitch again. He tended to do that whenever he was put-out or thinking. Wondering which it was, if not both, she pushed the slightly ajar door open and craned her head inside. "Harry, can I talk to you?" She searched the room for the sound and found the flicker of gold across the room flying up from the red velvet and cherrywood loveseat. He must have been laying down since she could only see the upholstered back of the chair and his trainer-covered feet hanging off the end.

His dejected and disembodied voice carried across the room to her. "Talk to me, at me, over me, whatever." Toss-_buzz_. Catch-_pat_. "Snivellus settled in?"

She quirked her lips in a frown and shouldered the rest of her frame through the door, closing it behind her. "Don't be that way. I'm sorry for what I said last night." Stepping quietly closer, she could see he was on his back and still tossing the snitch, only in shorter bits. The little clock on the fireplace mantle chimed St. Michael(2) at the hour; she waited til the tune was done to continue. "I knew it was wrong the moment it came out, I was just tired. You know what it's like after retrieving someone. We all get stressed."

He held the snitch for a moment, then with a flick of his wrist, tossed it higher and let it buzz its wings in a zipping pattern over him for a few moments, then darted his hand out to grab it again, closing his fist entirely around it. "Yeah. You've not asked either of us about our little excursion, though, have you?"

Hermione sighed and shifted closer to the ottoman at the foot of the armchair closest to her, taking a careful seat on the edge and folding her legs to the side. It occurred to her that she was still in yesterday's clothes. "No, but can I?" Of course, that also meant that Severus was in old clothes, as well. Should she rummage through their closets for something suitable? Or would he like to go shopping? Somehow she really needed to go to the library today, what would she do with Severus then? Would Remus sit with him?

She noticed partway through her mental diversion that Harry had stopped playing with the snitch and was staring at her with a strange look in his eyes. "It was hell to find them."

She blinked. Their information had been perfect, down to what are to find them and where they ate every night. What would have been the delay?

"We had to floo through thirteen different public houses with the same name in that province. Thirteen! As if that wasn't bad enough, we had ale thrown at us, a fireball, Ron got smacked with a broom and I was nearly drowned with a bucket of fish tossed on the fire—Fish, Hermione! But after all of that..." He lost a bit of the steam he'd grown while ranting, "They were fine." Toss-_buzz_. Grab-_pat_. "They were happy as clams and wondering why we'd even bothered to come find them. It was another case of the victim being perfectly settled in and the best we could do was offer restitution, which of course, they refused. Again." He sighed in frustration and she really couldn't blame him. "I'm getting tired of this Hermione. It's like no one wants our help anymore."

Remus had been right. That had been some adventure. And Harry was right, their last few attempts, save Severus, had been rather fruitless, regardless that they'd actually found the war victims. "I know. I'm..." She took a deep breath and considered her words to Severus last night, about what was going to happen now. "I'm wondering, when we finish up here...what we're going to do with ourselves."

Harry held his snitch still and turned his head to look at her. She kept his gaze and they stared at each other for a moment in empathy.

Both spoke at once, "Yeah."

So that was it. It was out. Their current lives were coming to a close and there was nothing they could do to stop it and nothing in line to do once it happened. She fluttered her hands out of her lap and tucked them under her thighs to keep from worrying her hands like she'd seen Molly or Minerva do, then looked around the parlor to everything else, anything else, trying to get her mind back on track to her purpose this morning.

She needn't have bothered, Harry did it for her, "So, um...is that what you wanted to talk about?" He shifted to sit upright, bringing his feet down to the floor and pocketing the snitch in a little drawstring bag in the chest pocket of his light blue tee.

Well, best to smile to keep things amiable. She leaned forward, pulling her hands out from underneath her and bracing her elbows on her knees. "No, not really. I mean, I did want to talk about that, but that's not what I came in here for."

He blinked behind his wild fringe and his black rimmed eyeglasses. "Okay."

She cocked her head a bit to the side and watched Harry's expression carefully. "It's about Severus."

His politely interested expression dropped into a huff as he flumped his posture back to the loveseat. "Thought so."

She saw him reach for his chest pocket and spoke quickly before he could get distracted with the snitch again. "Well, you're the only one that can help me with this part."

There. That stopped him. He leveled a look on her that was part disbelieving, part curious. "Hmph. How's that."

The corner of her mouth curled just a tiny bit in triumph, then she looked up at him through her lashes as if they were sharing a conspiracy. "You've got his memories."

_Wait. Wait for it._

Harry's instinctive co-conspirator expression melted into blank shock. Now either he would get excited or angry. She was hoping for 'excited', but betting on 'angry'.

He got a bit red in the cheeks and fisted his hands on his thighs. "I'm not giving them back."

_Here we go. Anger._ Of course he would be angry after her treatment of him last night. Sometimes she really should think before speaking. _Later, Hermione, focus on this, now._

Quickly searching for the right words, she realized his assumption was the mistake. "I'm not asking you to. I'm asking you to let him see them." At least, she thought he was assuming he'd have to surrender the memories entirely, and Severus only needed to see them. "In a pensieve."

Harry obviously didn't believe that. "And he'll just...let me keep them, I suppose?"

"Well, they _are_ his memories, Harry. He's already got them."

"But I thought he gave them..."

Hermione cut him off before he thought too hard down that line. "That's not how the spell works. Remember in primary school, how our Muggle teachers would make copies of worksheets for us?"

He nodded, clearly trying to follow her.

She steepled her fingers together to emphasize her point, gesturing towards him every few syllables with the cadence of her speech. "It's more like that. Severus still has the original in his head, only it's sort of...locked away." Her right hand twirled to emphasize. "Viewing the copy will simply unlock it."

Harry stared directly at her, as he did when he was puzzling through something. "So if I were to put a memory into a pensieve, I'd still have that memory in my head."

She dipped her chin in affirmation. "Right. A dimmer view, but yes."

He gestured to her with his left hand. "But you could see it."

"Yes." Another nod.

He stopped and stared at her silently, thinking things through. She waited patiently for him to continue.

He finally spoke, hesitantly, as if in class and surprised he had the answer. "And when I saw all those memories in Dumbledore's office sixth year, I remembered them, so technically, my mind made a sort of copy of those memories, too."

She smiled and spread her hands, "Exactly."

Harry smiled back briefly, "So even if he doesn't remember them, he still gets the memory, and even if he wants them back, I still have it too."

She nodded and leaned forward again, "Right, you just can't take it out and look at it with the same clarity and impressions that the original had."

He nodded in return. "Hmm."

When he just sat there, she prompted him, "So?"

He blinked at her, "Pardon?"

Boys. When do they gain an attention span? "Will you let him?"

"What, all at once?"

Her expression was just as appalled as his was. "Oh, good heavens, no! That'd probably kill him!" She glared at Harry for thinking she'd request something so stupid. "I was thinking one at a time. Starting with Lily."

Oops, that brought him up short. Yes, she really ought to think her words through when she was passionate about something. He narrowed his eyes and crossed his arms. "Why her and not Dumbledore first?"

Best to back-pedal with the truth. Or at least some of it. "Honestly, after all he went through last night, I don't think he could handle much more Dumbledore."

She was right. It was enough information to distract him and make him think of something else. "What? Why?"

Focusing on that, she exploited what would interest him without giving away anything too sensitive from Severus. She straightened her spine and braced her hands on the ottoman. "There's a lot there, Harry. I think he's remembering killing him, but there's something else, something I can't place my finger on yet."

"Huh." Harry stared at her for a bit, shifted his jaw left, then right, "Alright. I'll go get the pensieve from the library and we'll do this after you finish breakfast."

She was reaching forward to give him a hug when he just had to bring up the subject of food again. She backed up and sighed in irritation, "Harry-"

He held up a hand, palm facing her. "We've been over this, Hermione, if you're going to live here, you're going to eat right. None of that 'later' crap you fed us last year before you ended up in Saint Mungo's."

She grumbled and sighed, "Fine."

They parted at the door, Harry heading up the stairs and Hermione down the hall back to the kitchen. Honestly, what business was it of theirs how much she ate? It wasn't like she had a real problem, like anorexia or something. There had just been a few...months where she'd been too worried over finding Severus to eat...much...that's all.

Reaching the door to the kitchen, she immediately remembered last night and stepped down the single step, then looked to the spot on the wall where Severus had thrown the coffee mug. She reached for another mug from that same hutch and started pouring some juice from the carafe on the table when she noticed everyone eating except for someone very specific.

Ronald was stuffing his face like the curly-tailed farm animal he was, Remus and Tonks were doting over Teddy as he made a mess of the kitchen floor, but...

"Where's Severus?"

Tonks looked over from spooning wet, dribbling cereal into the baby's mouth. "What do you mean?"

Remus sat up from picking up something off the floor from under the high chair, then looked between Hermione and Ronald, "You mean he wasn't with you?"

When she turned her glare on Ronald, he just raised his eyebrows and kept gnoshing on a sausage speared on his fork. She couldn't believe him! "You just left him out there?"

He swallowed, leaving disgusting, greasy drippings on his mouth. What had she ever seen in him? "...Yeah...I guess so."

Oh! She could just strangle him for such carelessness! "Ronald!"

He shrugged and shoveled some eggs onto his fork. "What. He's a grown wizard. It's not like he couldn't find his way inside."

She let out a growl of frustration and swept around the kitchen table to try and look out the window for him. Of course he wouldn't be in sight! That would have made things easy! Did she have to do everything herself around here? She marched to the dutch door and pulled out her wand, but Remus called out to her, "Hermione, perhaps Ron has a point. We should leave him be for the moment and see what happens. No sense crowding him, you know."

She whirled on him, "No, I don't know. You didn't see him last night. You don't-"

A low rumble shifted them all, rocked the house a bit and everyone looked around the room. Hermione had read the news about an earthquake up at the Isle of Arran earlier this year, but here in London?(3) She felt like her knees were filled with jelly and her eyes couldn't focus properly. The quake increased for a moment, trembling the house, rattling the furniture and the kitchen utensils, shaking the flames in the light fixtures...then...it just stopped. She reached for the kitchen table for something to stabilize herself.

"What was that?"

Tonks was busy shushing the baby when Harry came running into the kitchen, slamming the door against the wall. "Is everyone okay? What the hell was that? An earthquake?"

"Nah, mate, they don't feel quite like that. Maybe it was a sonic boom or something." Hermione blinked. Sometimes Ronald actually had something intelligent to say.

Remus corrected them all, "No. Whatever it was, it had a magical signature." At those harrowing words, everyone drew their wands in anticipation as the air grew eerily quiet.

It felt like a pressure building and Teddy didn't like it one bit.

It built over a matter of seconds and with a squeeze-pop feeling like Apparition, broke over them and pushed everyone to the floor with the violence of the seismic wave.

Hermione had an inkling of what might be going on. She had experienced a panic attack with Severus last night and had wondered then what one would be like if he'd been left alone. Hestry might have had him under medication for a legitimate reason, after all, much as it pained her to admit it. She shouted over the cacophony. "Remus, you're sure it's magic?"

He nodded over his shoulder as he crawled back to his wife and child, huddling under the trestle table.

That was the only explanation. Damn Ronald and his careless behavior! She stumble-crawled to the back door and tapped her wand to the latch just as the wave abated. Hermione shakily stood up and turned to glare at her idiot ex-boyfriend. "Get everyone out and to the park!"

Harry yelled out behind her. "Wait! What are you going to do?"

She sighed and yelled at the door. "I'm obviously going to try and stop whatever is panicking him!"

"Not by yourself, you're not!" Remus, Harry and Tonks had the same mind about this, apparently. She rolled her eyes that Ronald hadn't joined the chorus.

"We don't have time for this!" She wrenched open the door and hurtled down the stairs, hearing feet behind her and not caring how many, as long as everyone was safe. She had to get to Severus before he brought down the entire neighborhood and oh, what a load of paperwork that would be from the Ministry...

Pounding down the pathway, she found him curled pitifully in on himself, facing downwards at the base of a majestic sessile oak tree with his forehead on a protruding root. "Severus."

He shivered, twitched, then snapped his head to look up at her with hollow eyes, his hands holding both sides of his head as if he were trying to crush his own skull.

"Oh, Severus, I'm sorry."

She stepped forward slowly, one hand outstretched.

He dropped his shaking right hand from his head and braced it on the root beneath him just as the others came tearing up behind her and skid to a halt.

The pressure began building again.

* * *

><p>AN:

(1)Ever hear the phrase "knock on wood" after saying something that might tempt the fates to prove you wrong? Yeah, it's those pesky wood sprites just waiting to spread the word. Knocking on the nearest piece of wood startles them into confusion so they forget to do it.

(2)Http: / www . Clocksnmore . Com / midi / stmichael . mp3 (remove spaces) Trust me, much better than the rather over-used Westminster and please, imagine a small chime instead of the larger tube-chime this seems to be recorded with. Remember: _Little_ clock. ;)

(3)This fic takes place roughly in October of 2000, if my calculations are correct. My research suggests that London hadn't experienced an earthquake since 1852 at that point and wouldn't until 2002. According to a common seismic activity map, there's hardly anything going on down in Surrey, where Harry's from, as opposed to Devon, where Ron's supposed to be from (hp lexicon states Ottery St Catchpole is in Devon). In fact, earthquakes seem to occur more commonly on the western side of the isles (which, I think, combined with the Gulf Stream, explains the interesting 'S' shape to the main island and the general broken look to the western side of Scotland) though, there have been some doozies in the southeast and east out in the water. Forgive me, though, I am no geologist or seismologist.

I do not wish to wrongfully influence anyone's imagination (winks at Darquehart), but should you be interested, I've rendered my version of "The Safe Place" and "Severus Snape Shorn" at deviantart. (dena – gray . Deviant art . Com - remember to lose the spaces)

Again, influence at your own risk, but as for music this time around, no soundtrack. I was, however, heavily influenced by these few:

1. Hurt – NIN cover by 2Cellos (Sulic & Hauser)

2. The Hunger (Amnesty International Version) – Shirley Manson & Serj Tankian

3. Amarillo - Gorillaz


	9. Chapter 9

Author's Very Important Note to Previous Ch.9 Readers: Yeah, I really wasn't in top form writing this chapter, so I rewrite. Forgive me, but I think it's important and I hope you think so too. :) Thank you to all those who read the previous version and I hope you'll read through this version and like the differences.

On with the show.

* * *

><p><strong><span>Chapter 9<span>**

A chilled wind snuck down the collar of his jacket and stopped Severus in his tracks. He shivered and closed his eyes, wondering at what point he'd gained warmth in order to feel this temperature difference. Images of his night in the hammock flickered behind his lids and reminded him of his golden companion.

He snorted and opened his dark eyes, glaring at the over and under wooden door set so snugly back into the brick. His eyes shuffled a bit from side to side, unexpectedly quickly, and that made the door seem that much farther away. Was it...pulling away?

He blinked, lurched his head to the sky, up to the branches above him dripping leaves in the autumn morning upon him as another wind pulled through their boughs. It smelled...musty. Full. Rich. He remembered the smell of loam, identifying different types from different locales simply by smell. The memory both comforted him and angered him at the same time.

Would he always be like this? Remembering shards of his past?

He carefully stepped a few paces down the path, remembering all too well the burrs from last night should he leave it. The pea gravel and dead leaves gathered between his toes, crunched, and just as he was about to press fully down for the next step, he felt something sharp and lost balance, tipping to the nearest tree.

His hand reached out to the bark, fingers shifting across the rivulets of wood as he leaned over and examined the sole of his foot. Nothing. He also found nothing on the path. _I need shoes. Perhaps this halfway house can offer something other than irritation and fear?_

Even knowing the surface of his thoughts were true, he chastised himself...slightly. He had to admit freedom from that insane asylum was something good that came from this place.

A very small and tiny voice in his head protested that wasn't all, but he quashed it ruthlessly.

He wondered at Hermione leaving him so quickly after the Weasley made such a scene this morning. She'd been quiet. Any other time since his rescue that someone had accosted him or made so much as a trifling effort to mock him, she'd been there, roaring to his defense. The Weasley throws him to the floor and makes a few exclusionary remarks about breakfast and she'd forgotten all about Severus.

Bah.

What was it worth worrying about it, anyway? He was only here on their good graces, obviously until he could return to real life.

Hmph. He shouldn't even be here.

He should be dead.

He should very well be dead. He remembered that snake...that bite...that war...something plucked inside his brain, spinning his senses. He watched a flock of sweeps flitter into view and settle into the branches above him.

What an odd thing for them to do. [1]

His eyes trailed down the branches that grew larger and closer, saw where they joined as if the branches were arms instead of limbs. Sliding his hand up the bark, he stepped closer, regarding the great Sessile Oak before him as a thing of beauty.

His head twitched to the left as he remembered his empty tree in his safe place and scoured the dark amber leaves of this one for any semblance. The only likeness he could find was the beauty of it, the grandeur. It was full of its own life instead of his memories...

What would he find when Hermione put the pensieve before him? He stopped fooling himself and admitted that the memories had to be his. If he thought back far enough in their conversation, she'd said he'd shoved memories at Harry as he died...but what memories?

What would be there in the silvering liquid-not-liquid that fascimilated his recollections? All those eyes? Would they be there?

He knew three of them. Green Eyes with Black Hair was Harry. Apparently they had a connection through the Dark Lord. Alright. Blue Eyes...Ah, but that ached and he didn't know _why. _There had to be more than what he'd seen so far for this amount of pain and sense of betrayal, there just had to.

And then there was Brown Eyes. Hermione. He inhaled. She...she linked them all somehow. Why would his mind link her to them if she'd been just a student to him?

A small voice whispered '_know-it-all_' in his brain and he wondered if perhaps he'd simply latched onto her as the only possible and close source of intelligence now that Albus was dead. That...was strange, but he could work with that.

That only left..._hers._ Green Eyes with Red Hair and Bitterness.

His breathing quickened, his gut tightened in anticipation. Wrapping his arms around himself, he dropped his head to the oak for...something...appeal, perhaps. What...what would he find? How much would he find?

Would the pensieve tell him about _her?_

Did he want it to?

Didn't his nerves on the subject say enough?

Dammit, if only he'd not given the memories away in the first place. Why did he do so? What purpose could he possibly have to divulge so much of himself...

He stopped and stared at the gray crags of bark in front of his nose.

_How_ much of himself?

He tightened his grip on his torso and licked his dry, chapped lips. Could that be why he remembered nothing of himself? He'd given it all away? Somehow that didn't feel right, but what if?

Could one give too much of themselves into memories, so much that they couldn't recollect who they were anymore? What if he had? He blinked. The logical, devil's advocate within made him ask: well, what if he hadn't?

He sneered at himself and tapped his forehead against the bark. What a ridiculous question. What if? What if the sky was falling in?

Ridiculous.

He turned and rested his shoulder against the bark of the oak with a soft thud. Ridiculous! He was...there was no other possible explanation for this.

No one came back from the dead. Hermione kept stating that he and the Lupins had died that day.

NO ONE came back from the dead.

Except perhaps—

Well—

Two things were therefore possible.

One: none had died in the first place. That was the most logical conclusion as they were all here, living, breathing, functioning human beings.

Two, and this was highly unlikely: they'd all been Resurrected.

He pursed his lips as he thought about this. It really was...easier...if they'd never died, but Hermione insisted—Hell, HE'D insisted—he'd died. She said she watched him.

It would be physically possible to die and come back after a few minutes.

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, remembering Arthur Weasley all too well. Snake bites like that bled out all too quickly and the ante-venin he'd helped create only worked if administered after the strike.

If Potter, Weasley and Hermione had thought he was dead...and they were the last to see him...no one administered the potion. He should have died, bled out within minutes.

He reached up to touch the ragged scar on his neck, fingering the odd places that felt numb and the other places that sent little zaps of sensation deep beneath the skin into the muscle. There were places that the skin actually felt too thin, then too thick. He cupped the side of his neck and sighed.

The facts did seem a bit stilted. Hmm. Something Hermione said last night came back to him:

"_I watched you _die_, but here you are! I don't know _how_, but here you _are_! And so is Tonks and Remus! They think their child has wild magic that brought them back but now I'm not so sure. Why would Teddy bring you back, too?" _

Why, indeed?

Why would a child want to bring his parents back from the dead? An infant, at that? Would a child know that their parents were missing at such a young age?

Stranger things have happened in his lifetime. Potter included.

Back to the issue at hand, Hermione had also said something earlier, something he'd not paid much heed to but was now something that needed to be threaded with the same string:

_"I watched Tonks and Remus float through their lives for the first few months and then just snap-to when Teddy threw his trainer cup at them. If your situation was anything like theirs, I was terrified of what I would find when I came to you..."_

Terrified. Terrified _why?_ Because she might find him drifting? She'd found that and not been terrified. So what was so damned scary? Unless—

Unless she was thinking the same thing. She'd been thinking along the same lines he was now.

That plucking happened again and the birds raised a raucous, causing him to jerk his head upwards, nearly tipping him backwards.

Thankfully the tree was there, but he felt so dizzy. He braced his hands behind him and gripped the bark, feeling the roughness dig into his time-softened palms.

Something wriggled in the back of his brain, something from childhood and impressed upon him later, something to do with this...something...explaining the Resurrected.

His mother's voice floated back through his ears, making him sick with disdain and remorse,_ "she was sad and cold, separated...by a veil. Though she had returned, she did not belong there and suffered. Finally the second brother, driven mad with hopeless longing, killed himself to join her."_ [2]

He felt the blood leech from his face as he fumbled behind him for the oak's strength. Bloody HELL.

They'd been _Resurrected_.

It fit! It Bloody Fucking FIT. They'd all died, they'd all lived as if through a veil with no connection to the real world until the greatest connection...a reason to live came along...

For the Lupins, their child.

What did he have? No one. Not one person. His parents were long since gone and good riddance, he was surely to be denied his home at Spinner's End since he'd been declared dead for two years, so what had lifted the veil for him? What was strong enough to pull him back through the ether and give him reason to connect?

What—or who—had he connected with?

Well, there really was only one answer to that, wasn't there? Hermione. Brown Eyes. But why?

Why her?

What the hell could she do for him that he couldn't do for himself?

He gritted his teeth and cracked his head back against the tree's trunk. He'd already figured out that she's the connector, but why? Why her? Why did he need a connector at all? What did he need to do with all these Eyes and connections?

And they'd been _Resurrected! _What idiot had _dared_ do such a thing? How dare any witch or wizard go against the very laws of nature! It made him sick! There were two constants in life: Death and Change. He was certain he should have been dead. He growled and pounded his fist to the trunk—that had changed.

Anger peeled up his spine as he delved through all the possibilities, wracking his body with indignation and injustice...Who could have done this? Why?

A roil of sickness washed up from his gut and felled him to his knees against the tree, quaking from his arse, all the way up his throat as he realized the possibility of another Lord and Master.

What if someone had brought him back to be another puppet? Was that what he'd been doomed to be?

He wretched as if ridding himself of something evil and felt an answering pulse from his magic trying to purge something within. It knocked him flat to the ground, head to the lichen and knees in toadstools.

Merlin! He coughed and shook again, not sure exactly why he was reacting this way except it was UNNATURAL! Who dared bring him back? Who used the stone? Potter? Albus swore the boy would use the Hallows only as he needed to, that his heart was pure unlike the murdered—

No. His heart stopped for a moment and he quailed, brayed, finally realizing in a full word what had passed between himself and the old man. He'd killed him. Albus had both asked him to save and murder him in the same breath. Severus knew that he'd killed over and over in his career under the Dark Lord, he knew that now, finally and again, but nothing...oh, nothing was as _wrong_ as this!

He choked on snot, trying to breathe in and not wretch again, but it was useless. Every breath made his diaphragm reject more bodily fluid and it was now nothing but dark yellow bile that felt as if it were from the bowels of hell, but it just kept coming until he finally succumbed to unconsciousness. Blessedly dark and unfeeling unconsciousness...

/

Footsteps rained through his brain like dropped books on a stone floor. He pried open an eye to see Hermione staring at him in some kind of mixture of revulsion, fear and worry. He couldn't bring himself to care. It hurt too much. His head, his eyes, his tongue, his brain, his nose, his gut, every muscle and tendon felt as if it were squeezed dry. Just as he tried to swallow and shift his position, he felt a great heave inside, as if that squeeze was about to start in the other direction, or a spring that had been tightened beyond its point of control was about to burst outward. He braced his hand against the root beneath him and looked out at the group assembling before him, tried to speak, warn them to get away...

Nothing would come!

No words, just this great pressure, building and building in his spine, through his nerves, tearing along his skin, pressing down on his brain—

"Stupefy!"

He cast a grateful smirk at Harry for thinking quickly and felt the spell hit his body, knocking him into oblivion again.

/

Hermione reared, spun on her heel to stand between Severus' prone body and Harry with her wand out to attack if necessary, backing slowly towards him, "Harry! How could—what did you just do!"

He held up his hands in supplication, looked to Remus and Ronald for help, "No. Hermione, trust me, I've seen this before."

What? "Excuse me, but I don't know how you could have."

He slowly shifted backwards, closer to Ronald. "Dudley. One of his friends went through drug rehab. Snape was showing signs of withdrawal and you, yourself, pointed out to us how that could affect his magic." He looked at her determinedly and dropped his hands to fist at his side. "I had to. Otherwise, we'd be having a bloody mess to explain to the Ministry."

They stared at each other, Hermione fuming at the implication that she didn't have this under control, that Harry knew more about this than she did, that she'd—

"Hermione?"

She nearly spat out 'What' but a glance over at Tonks set her manners straight, "Yes, Tonks?"

"You two didn't eat much last night and there was hardly anything missing from Sev's plate when I retrieved it this morning."

Oh, oops. She'd completely forgotten about leaving that in the park. "Oh. Um, Sorry about that."

She waved her hand free for a moment from Teddy's bum, then back to brace him up. "Not really a problem, but Remus mentioned that neither of you have eaten anything this morning, either. Or at lunch yesterday..."

Not this again. But then, Severus...The look on...well, everyone's face was...Dammit, she'd NOT done this on purpose! Didn't they understand how rude it was to harp on someone to eat when they just didn't want to? Why did they all have to look at her as if she'd...disappointed them? "I—"

Tonks' disappointed sigh hurt. It really did. She watched the woman shift the baby on her hip and kiss Remus, then turn back to the house. "I'll go set up a stew. Even I can't screw that up. Come on Teddy, let's go find Kreacher."

"Keesher!"

"Yep! And you can play with his ears. I know he'll love that..."

Harry was the first of the group left to speak up. "I think...it's time you went to the library."

Something in his tone grated on her nerves. "Excuse me?"

"You were going to go anyway, right?"

"Well, yes, but-"

"Then take the chance to read up on this," he pointed to Severus, "and get it through your head that you can't stay here and forget to eat!" He ended by pointing to her rather rudely.

Who the hell gave him the right to stand up and be Head of House? "Pardon me, but I had a lot on my mind yesterday!"

He gestured again to the slumped man on the ground. "And what about Snape, eh? Because of your full-mindedness, he could've brought down the block! You brought him back, he's your responsibility! You know the rules, Hermione! Hell, you bloody wrote them!" He threw his hand back over to her at the end, then dropped it at his side in exasperation.

Why did they all look so disappointed? It wasn't _all_ her! "I didn't—Harry, I wouldn't—you know me, I—"

"Save it. Just...go to the library and do what you need to do. Get your head on straight. We'll take care of Snape while you're out."

He motioned for Ronald and Remus to help him lift Severus off the ground. When they were murmuring about where to take him, she spoke up,

"Don't...don't take him inside. He's afraid of the house."

Harry strained over his shoulder, "Fine, whatever. Just go."

She saw his feet and remembered, "And find him some shoes."

All three of them reproached her, "Hermione!"

Cheeks stinging in embarrassment, she slunked off towards the house, "Okay, okay. I'm going."

/

Oh. Oh, God. Why didn't she look this up before? Why did she rush into this so blindly? She knew better! She'd always known better!

Hermione stared at the books laying on the table before her, all open to damning pages researching withdrawal symptoms and treatments of stopping anti-psychotic medication...if that was even what Severus had been on.

She slipped her head into her hand and her fingers into her hair, letting loose a small whine. She was horrible! She was evil! The only thing she could think of to try and make things right was to Apparate back to Hestry's and break into his records to try and find out exactly what medication Severus had been on, perhaps even steal some of the medication itself, then wean him off of it slowly, but the right way to do that would be to clear it through Remus or Harry first.

Everything else she was reading was saying he could have damning health problems otherwise.

And it was all her fault! She'd been turning it around on Harry and then on Ron, but it was really her own fault. All of it. It had been her fault Harry had upset Severus with Voldemort, her fault Severus had been left alone in the garden this morning, her fault he'd not eaten since God-knows-when!

Aaugh!

She slammed the book shut before her, then the rest of them, stacking them into a pile on the returns cart for the librarian to put away later. Normally, she'd take the time to put them back where she'd found them, but today was just...one of those days. The librarian could do it for once. As she stomped down the stairs and towards the Apparation point in St. James Square, she started to get nervous about what she'd find back home at Grimmauld Place.

She'd left them there several hours ago. Severus was probably awake by now and surrounded by people he probably disliked. She couldn't even fathom how she came into the 'like' category but was rather pleased that she was. It was nearly enough to overshadow the sickening feeling that she'd already failed him by letting him fall so far behind in his recovery.

This was rather serious, she couldn't deny that. If he didn't start eating, regularly and soon, as well as including physical activity, his body would shut down completely. No amount of magic could hold him together and no amount of his own magic could stay inside of him.

She needed to go to Hogwarts' library to see if they had any information, but she needed to get back home more urgently, if only to re-establish that yes, Severus was her charge and that she was fully responsible for him.

She let out a little sigh at that. When did her fascination with him turn into garden-variety responsibility? Moving to sit on a park bench before Apparating, she pondered the question. Yes, he was fascinating. Yes, he still had the most amazing snark in Britain and YES she loved it that he focused so much on her, but...

She sighed again. It felt wrong to be attracted to someone so unhealthy. Like...like he needed a chance to be himself before she could throw herself at him. She smiled at that and remembered the straddling affair from last night. It would have been different, back in his prime, if she'd done that...

She huffed herself back to reality. She was being silly. He really wasn't that much different now. So why did she feel like he was?

Perhaps...perhaps if she helped him get his memories back and a few more pounds on his bones...then of course, there was the hair. She smiled to herself and stood up. He absolutely had to grow his hair back. He just wasn't Severus Snape without it.

Apparating from one park to another, she made a promise to herself that she'd take mealtimes more seriously, both for Severus' sake and for her own.

Stalking down the hallway and into the kitchen, she found Teddy giggling madly on the floor with Kreacher babbling down to him in his scratchy voice. She tried to remain quiet, but the house elf noticed her almost immediately and bowed.

"Kreacher is sorry for the uncivilized display. Can Kreacher get Miss something to eat?" [3]

She smiled softly to him. "No, Kreacher, you were doing a fine job with Teddy. If you don't mind, I'm just going to raid the fridge[4] for something quick."

"As the Miss wishes."

He bowed again, very solemnly, and pattered back to his charge with suspicious eyes, picking up randomly strewn toys as he went. Hermione smiled at him again and opened the door built into the wall, looking for some fruit and milk.

Finding what she needed, she thanked Kreacher, balanced the bowl and jug, then exited the kitchen through the dutch door to the rear garden.

"Hello?"

Everything was so quiet...

She approached the oak tree, the pergola...nothing.

Surely they hadn't taken him inside, had they? She looked back to the house, but could determine nothing from the sky reflecting innocently back at her off the glazed panes.

Shaking her head, she delved deeper into the garden, realizing that there was a bit of a path beaten down in the overgrowth. She followed it for quite some ways, wondering just how far back the garden went, when finally, amazingly, she came across a pond.

"I had no idea we had one of these."

"Neither did I."

"Oh!" She nearly dropped her lunch, but Harry helped her balance everything, smiling at her when he realized she'd taken his suggestion to heart. He really was so easy to please, especially when it was only that he cared about them all.

"Alright, then?"

"I think so." She shifted the jug a bit into her elbow and nodded to the pond. "So what brought along the excursion?"

"Snape seemed better once we got some stew in him and he wanted to...well, we all wanted to see how far back it went. I'd not realized we'd never really bothered since—"

Sirius. It was his garden, so it would make sense that Harry would want to both see it and not see it.

"Are you okay?"

"Eh? Oh, yeah. Fine." He nodded in a way that Hermione knew meant she should leave it alone. He redirected with a thumb over his shoulder. "Snape found a folly."

She blinked. "Pardon?"

"Yeah! It's great! Come and see, you brought lunch just in time, too."

She smiled and followed him through big leafy plants and tall tails that had long since puffed their pods, wilted old flowers and vines that had been hacked away, around the pond and through an entire grove of willows—

"How—"

He looked back at her over his shoulder and laughed. "I have no idea, so don't even ask. Snape and Remus think it's something like what they did with the Forbidden Forest. How Sirius learned about that, we'll never know."

He continued on and she smiled at his back. "I guess not...but we can try and find out how to do it, ourselves, if you wish."

Harry stopped. "Yeah, we could." He motioned ahead, then dropped his hands. "Here. There it is." He looked at her expectantly.

She looked to where he pointed and stood, shocked. Gracefully erected in the middle of a perfect clearing next to the narrowest point of the pond was a beautiful cupola folly. It had Corinthian columns and a domed ceiling, steps raising up to a stone floor and, "My goodness, this is huge!" Her voice rang up and over the the dome as she stepped forward.

She placed her goods on the floor behind the first column, looking up at the thirty-foot-tall ceiling in wonder. The columns swept around her in a nearly twenty foot circle [5] and as her gaze ran the circumference, she found her charge watching them, alone.

Hermione looked to Harry. "Did Remus already go inside?"

He glanced between them, "Yeah. The moon rises early this month."

So he was going to leave Severus alone this far out? "Where were you going?"

"Well, if you weren't back, I was going to get lunch."

She sighed through her nose and blinked, not sure if he was censuring her or praising her. She just let it be. "Well, here I am."

Harry looked down at the floor to her little luncheon and must have noted how small it actually was. "On second thought, I think now that you're here, I'll go scare up Kreacher for some sandwiches. You two have fun."

"Harry?"

He stopped at the bottom of the steps and turned back to her, hands stuffed in the pockets of his jacket. "Yeah?"

"Thanks."

He smiled his winning, boyish smile and jogged down the path, disappearing into the overgrowth.

A scuff on stone turned her attention to the floor behind her. "So they _did_ find you shoes."

"For now."

She looked up to him in question.

"They pinch."

"No one here has large enough feet?"

"Not even the Weasley, which is surprising."

Her mind went directly into the gutter and her eyebrows into her hair, so she stifled a giggle and dropped to retrieve their lunch. "Hungry?"

"So I'm told."

"Well, I know how that feels, but we both need to buck up and eat, so I brought us some fruit and milk. It's at least light and pure, so there are no spices to muck it up."

"That should be...adequate."

She paused and looked at him, judging to see if there was something wrong. His tone had changed from yesterday.

"Have I done something wrong?" God knows everyone else thought so, why not him?

His face remained impassive, but his tone was sarcastic perfection, "Heaven forbid. What could you have possibly done wrong?"

She swallowed and looked down, pulling a few leaves closer to transfigure into cups for the milk. "Oh, I don't know. You seem...a bit off from yesterday, that's all."

There went his eyebrow. "I don't suppose it might have something to do with my ever changing circumstances that my mood does the same?"

"Oh. Oh, I suppose."

She looked at him, starting to lose confidence in her position with him. He had been nearly...warm to her yesterday. Now he was so cold. Very like his old self and while it was wonderful that he was remembering things—she changed the leaves into cups with a swish and flick—what did that mean for her? Was he growing tired of her already?

She poured the milk into the cups and stood up, handing him one. "To your health."

"And yours."

They tipped the edge of their cups together and sipped the refreshing liquid while looking around the folly, avoiding each other. She sighed. This was silly. They were adults and could carry on as before, no matter what happened while she was out. "So...this is an interesting place you've found here."

"Indeed."

"Are you going to stay, then?"

"I didn't realize I had a choice at the moment."

"Um...well...there is the small detail of your being dead."

Never in all her life did she think she'd see Severus spit his milk, but he did. Thankfully, it was away from her, but he did and glared darkly at her. "Kindly do not mention that to me for the time being."

She blinked, still shocked that he'd had such a human reaction, but also that he'd had such an about face from last night. They'd talked about him being dead several times without reaction and now this? "Did you remember something? Or did one of the boys say something to upset you? Do you need me to say something to them, because I'd be glad to—"

"Lay off, guardian, I merely do not wish to speak of...it. The boys, as you so quaintly put it, have done nothing to upset me. In fact," he paced away from her towards the other side of the cupola, "Harry suggested I work the garden to regain some physical activity and earn my keep while I am here."

"Oh?" She watched him. He stood stock-still, obviously waiting for her judgment on the suggestion. "Well, I think that's a marvelous idea."

She bent down and opened the bowl at her feet, then brought it up to offer it to him, "Fruit?"

He stayed perfectly still, except for his head, which turned ever-so-slightly to his left so that his voice would carry over his shoulder. "How long have you known that I'd been Resurrected? Who else have you told?"

It was all she could do not to drop the pottery bowl she held in her hands.

"P-pardon?" She blinked. Where did this come from? How on earth did he come to that conclusion? Well, either conclusion? That he'd been Resurrected and not simply revived, and that she knew about it, or at least had figured it out.

He turned to face her fully and she was met with oubliette eyes she could easily be forgotten in. "I don't generally believe in repeating myself and I do believe you heard me."

"Ye—um. Well. You sort of brought up a very disturbing subject. What makes you think I think you're Resurrected? I'd have to report it to the Ministry and if I didn't, I'd be thrown into Azkaban if you were found and it were revealed I knew about it, now wouldn't I? So, I'd say that I didn't know anything of the sort."

_Right, Hermione. Very Slytherin of you. Hmph. Try pulling the other one. The only reason you wanted to find him first was to prove that he had been Resurrected and therefore needed protection from the Ministry. Nevermind that you're halfway out of your mind for him—_

His eyebrow shot up. "You would say you know nothing of it."

She paused and realized he'd actually caught the exact part of her rambling that was the most important. She'd lie to keep him safe. Honestly, after watching Remus and Tonks, then his own miraculous revival, there were just too many things pointing to them being Resurrected.

She'd once asked Harry if he still had the Stone and he admitted that he didn't know where it was. Said it was safer that way. She asked him how he'd used it in battle, and he said he saw shades of his loved ones, even Remus, and they walked him—protected him—through the Forest.

There was still no good explanation for that, except that Remus had actually been dead at that time, and that Harry didn't really want to bring them back, he'd just wanted their presence. He'd not asked for their complete return and that was all she had to go on.

She shrugged and looked Severus in the eye again.

He asked another question, "Who else knows?"

"Possibly Harry. He knows about Remus and Tonks, but he's trying to subscribe to the 'Teddy having wild magic' theory. It helps him bond with the little tyke."

"And the Weasley? The Lupins?"

"Ronald is easily distracted in anything but quidditch and chess. I doubt he's taken the time to notice. His current theory is that you've been a vampire living off of rats in the south all this time."

Severus snorted.

"The Lupins...I'm not sure. Remus, as you know, is very intuitive and...knows me well enough that I've had to be careful around him. Harry and I are also very careful about not mentioning anything involving their deaths or yours. Tonks is blithe about it. She's completely taken up with Teddy and Remus, but has her moments. She can be very perceptive when she wants to be."

He looked up a column, traced it visually to the dome, then dropped his gaze back to her. "Where does that leave me and my...situation?"

She blinked. "Nowhere new. I'm really the only one who knows and we'll keep it that way unless you want to research something?" She ended it on a question, wondering if this was why he'd connected the dots. Did he wonder who or why? She did, but wouldn't push unless he wanted to.

He looked hard at her, watched her, seemed to be making a decision. "Not yet." At that, he walked forward and peered into her bowl, selected a piece of cantaloupe and bit down on the chunk of melon, showing the tips of his teeth from between his pale, thin lips.

She reached for the honeydew and did the same.

Really, what else was there to do?

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><p>Author's Note(with corrected numbers):<p>

[1]Chimney Sweeps (or Chimney Swifts) are American Birds primary to the Eastern Seaboard. I know this. Severus knows this (somewhere in that mind of his). Sweeps are also not seen in England in October for any reason. Severus would 'normally' also know this. Know now that there is a reason for him seeing Sweeps in England in October. It has to do with that nasty plucking sensation I've added in, too ;)

[2]This is a paraphrase from DH pg.409, as I don't believe Severus would remember this word for word, only the important bits.

[3]I always view Kreacher as from the movies (and yes, as he was in the book), very serious, very scratchy voice, very properly spoken. I just can't write him with the silly elf speak! (It has since been brought to my attention that silly elf speak is an invention of fanfiction. I really hadn't caught that before)

[4]http : / coventrycrest. Com/ slideshow/ images/ slide31. Jpg (remove spaces) This will show you what I mean by their fridge (I'm using the concept that Grimmauld Place is a non-modified Victorian household, so the kitchen would have an actual ice-box, or cold cabinet, instead of a refrigerator. One could charm the cabinet or box to cool or freeze accordingly instead of importing ice like the neighbors did.) Also, I would like to mention they are witches and wizards. They do not have the same food processing that we do, so their milk is not homogenized or pasteurized as ours is. Severus is getting raw milk (and before you gag, this is good for him at this dietary stage and Tonk's stew from before really would have been something very simple, more like a broth with things thrown in he could pick around) I didn't mention this in my previous edit because I felt I'd get a lot of protest, but I'm going for it and trusting that you guys are a rather smart bunch ;)

[5]If this were done in a true Greek style, then it would be done in a two-thirds, or a three-fifths rule of scale. I chose two-thirds. Therefore, if it is thirty feet tall, it is twenty feet wide. Plenty big enough for a bedroom, eh? (snerk) Also, by my calculations and research, the sun rose around 7:20-7:30am at that time of year in London, and Hermione had been gone for HOURS, so there had been plenty of time for Severus to recover from cascading all over the oak tree and decide to take a walk. I'm estimating she's returning around 2pm. (therefore she'd been gone nearly six hours)

PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK OF THE IMPROVED CHAPTER NINE! :)


	10. Chapter 10

Author's Notes! Extra long since I won't be back until after the holidays!

On the footnotes, please see the forum for the fic! that way this will stay nice and neat for those that just want to read and if you want to discuss the footnotes there, please do so! ff. net /forum/Lioness_Loricatus/97627/

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><p><strong>Chapter 10<strong>

The fruit bowl had long since been banished to the kitchens and Hermione paced around the folly's columns, periodically tracing the stonework with the palm of her hand and following the growing vines that curled and twined up the cold, fluted columns.

She furtively looked to Severus as he sat on the top step, the first taps of drizzling rain glancing off him unnoticed. She blinked, concerned. Did he feel it? He dipped his head, his arms braced on his knees, then looked back up and out, away from her, to the wooded part of the property that separated the pond from the house. He gave no indication that the increasing drops were affecting him at all.

She put her hand out to feel them herself and brought it immediately back in to wipe off on her trousers. The rain was chilled, if not cold, and a fog was moving in if her glance across the brick fence was telling.

Should she ask someone to bring him a blanket? Should she just shoot him with a Warming Charm? Would he become angry with her for that? Either would be using magic, after all.

Then again, so was transfiguring the leaves into cups and he'd not said anything about that.

She leaned back against the column and watched him watch the greenery shift in the wind, mulling over her options. She could summon a blanket, cast a warmer on his jacket...but then what if he was so used to being cold it made him uncomfortable enough to take off the jacket? She looked around the dome for answers and shifted her back on the chilled stone.

And blinked.

Well, yes, that would be a start, wouldn't it? And he might not even notice something that subtle.

With a small smile and another surreptitious peek to make sure he wasn't looking, she whispered a spell on the wind with a twirl of her wand to the stone floor and hoped it would take. Would she have to charm each block or would it radiate from stone to stone? She watched the spell leech into the paver and waited for the faint glow to stop or shift past the tile's barrier.

It was hard to contain her squeal of triumph when it slipped past the grouted joint and continued, fading in strength as it went, to the edge of the folly. The spell passed potency just as it reached Severus, just as she had hoped.

She gave herself a small congratulatory smile and sighed in satisfaction, then tucked her wand in her sleeve.

It took a few moments, but his posture eventually relaxed with the gentling heat slowly reaching for him.[1]

Ha! It had worked! She smirked. Of course it did.

Her smiled faded as she wondered at the possibility of his being desensitized. First the cold, then the rain, now a warming charm? True, these were extenuating circumstances, but...

Well, damn.

She needed to test that theory and that meant invading his space, space that he'd been slowly putting between them for the past hour.

As to that, what in all of England had _she_ done? He blamed it on his changing circumstances, but focused his aggravation on her. Was she just a nearby outlet? Why then was he not tromping off into the verdery and doing damage there? Why so subdued? Why focus on ignoring her like this?

Why, indeed, unless the problem was, actually, _her_. She narrowed her gaze to the end of the vine nearest her head and the creeping tendrils swaying in the damp breeze.

That would be annoying enough. She pinched off a forearm's length and turned back to her target, contemplating the best strategy for attack. Should she just walk up and tickle him? With or without his notice?

Hmm. Better do it without for best results, she just needed to keep her wand on hand in case he exploded again. That and he was a former Death Eater, after all, regardless of losing his memories. That didn't make him any less lethal.

_Right_.

She swallowed, looked down at the leafy strand in her grasp and not-quite-crept forward to stand behind him. She lifted the vine and dangled it to the stretch of skin just between his hairline and the collar of his jacket—

"It's not polite to sneak up on a person."

"Oh!" She dropped the green on him and jumped in surprise. "How did you...?" Her voice faded off as she watched him reach up to his neck and pluck the vine away from his collar to examine it,

"What is this for?"

Hermione looked from the drizzling rain to his still form to the unrelenting stone floor and sighed. She moved to sit next to him, "I was testing you."

His eyes flashed something dark at her as she dropped down next to him, "For what?"

She thought about the situation and marveled that perhaps her answer had been given anyway. "Well, for sensitivity, but I think you've passed that test." She eyed him from the side, not daring to quite look him dead-on, yet. "In more ways than one."

"And just what is that supposed to mean?"

My, wasn't he bristly? She looked askant[2] to him. "You knew I was there?"

"Yes."

She turned her head away and rolled her eyes at his blunt answer. "And you could feel the vine when I dropped it, so you're sensitive to touch as well as proximity; ergo, you don't need that kind of rehabilitation."

He stared at her. She could feel it as she stared at her knees. Her knees were so much safer than the hauteur she'd be sure to find in his eyes.

"Why did you feel the spectacular need to test this out now and with this..._weed_?" He waved the thing at her as if it were offensive. She reached over with a clicked sigh and took it back from him.

Honestly! He was a scientist...of a sort... Surely he understood the relationship between research and testing theory? She peeked sideways at him to find his thin lips pursed and his nostrils flared. She still didn't quite make it up to his eyes. "It didn't occur to me before my research at the London that your physical sensitivity could be affected by your medication. Some Anti-Psychotics dull the senses." _Others_, she thought as she looked to his hands, _heighten_ _it_...

She watched his hands still, flex, and relax in-between his knees in an indescribable pattern. In a perverse mind, she reached the bit of green over and ran it across the closest hand. He snatched it away with an inhalation.

His voice was tightly reigned with...something. "You needn't have tried. I could have told you my _sensitivity_ is functioning normally."

He sounded so strained, strangling on some kind of emotion. She gathered the courage to look up to his eyes and saw him staring at the vine as if it were going to jump up and bite him. His face was perfectly placid, but his eyes were harrowed: great rows of torture were being sewn in the field of his mind and she couldn't think of anything to do but ask in a very small voice, "Sh-should I apologize?"

He said nothing.

His nostrils flared and his chest rose, his hands clenched and released stiffly, but he said nothing. Tentatively, she lifted her hand, closest to him, and when its first fingertip barely brushed the cloth of his coat, his head snapped over and he bodily flinched away.

She froze, confusion broken across her face like a slap and as they sat, still, staring at each other in perfect statues, the rain increased in a pounding, incessant wave.

She blinked against it, he gritted his teeth, but they both persisted. She wasn't sure why they had decided to do this...this staring contest. Was she trying to prove something to him? If so, was it to show him up or gain his trust? Was it working? This was insane, he was doing nothing but grinding his teeth into powder and giving himself a nervous twitch...probably a cold.

Fantastic, she needed to be the one to break the staring contest just so they could move up into the dome to keep from getting sick. Just as well, cold and wet was not her favorite look and something drippy was making its way down her forehead into her eye. She blinked against it and in that moment, he'd stood up.

Offered...his hand?

Why?

His voice was gravelly and dark. "The offer is not indefinite."

That snapped her out of it, "Oh! Of course not!" She slipped her hand into his—so cold!—and used it to balance herself as she stood. "Your hand is freezing."

Taking his hand between the both of hers, she chafed it a bit, letting the rainwater slip across them as she did so. He seemed compliant to letting her do this, so she held onto that hand and reached for the other, but he simply tugged everything out of reach and shifted over to a column, taking up his post of looking outwards again.

She mentally growled at that. What was so wrong with wanting to warm his hands? Ugh! Fine. He was going to be a prat anyway, so she might as well do something to actually gain his disdain. She pulled out her wand and quickly shot Drying and Warming Charms, successively, at his back.

He stiffened—vibrated?—and turned his head just enough to catch her eye. He apparently didn't think she'd leave herself unattended while taking care of him, for the irritation and anger quickly turned to appraisal as he shifted his head further and dropped his gaze down her—?

Oh. Right. Thin shirt. _Brilliant_, Hermione.

Two spells, _toute d'suite_![3]

She looked up, sighed and made a face at him, but he just looked her up and down, shrugged, and looked back out. Again.

What was so incredibly fascinating with the blooming greenery? She took her three steps up to him, crossed her arms _over_ her chest (thank you very much) and looked out with him.

They both stared off, aware of each other, but not saying or doing anything other than standing next to each other and breathing. It was driving Hermione crazy, this silence. She needed to say _something_.

Anything.

"So...um...what did you...three do today, while I was at the library?"

She rolled her eyes at herself. Even if speaking meant inane chatter which would probably get an irritating reaction from him. God, just something, please, other than staring at trees?

His voice was low and distracted. "Don't be tiresome." He sighed and ran his hand over the uneven stubble of his hair. "I'm assuming you were researching my condition from the bits of conversation Lupin and Potter allowed me to overhear?"

_Don't be tiresome_. Right. She remembered all the times he'd berated her in class for volunteering extraneous information and thought to give him a bit of his own back with a simple, infuriating answer. "Yes."

He turned his head to face her and sneered. "That's it? 'Yes'? Do you care to elaborate or does it entertain you to keep me in the dark? Does it even occur to you I may have valuable information to contribute?"

She grit her teeth and narrowed her eyes in irritation. "It did occur to me, yes, but I wasn't going to just blurt out that we need to put you back on the medication and slowly wean you off of it."

She almost didn't catch his snide murmur, "As you obviously did _not_ do just now."

This was getting them nowhere. She needed to redirect them onto some kind of productive conversation where they didn't feel the need to belittle or best each other. Thinking through possibilities, she tossed the vine out into the patch of dirt between the folly and the pond, ready for them to trod upon the next they walked the path.

For a few moments, she just breathed, enjoyed the cool, damp air and how good it felt in her lungs, watched little clouds forming as she exhaled through her nose, watched the fog creep over the brick fence and into the yard.

Her mind searched and searched through her mental library for an appropriate subject...

Ah. Finally. Something she could ask him, "Have you had any more episodes today?"

He'd obviously not expected her to say anything just then, for his brows crowded together in a suspicious expression, "What?"

Hermione tipped the corner of her mouth up at his expression. "Episodes? Have you had any more while I was gone?"

She heard an inaudible grumble and leaned forward.

"What was that?"

"Two," he snapped.

She paused for a bit to let him calm down before asking her next question, "Were they any different than the ones before?"

He took a deep breath and looked away from her. Would his need to identify and neutralize the problem overwhelm his growing and reconverting necessity on privacy? She watched him inwardly battle his choices, no give on his face but that of a small twitch beneath his left eye.

She'd nearly given up on his answering the question when finally, he did, "The first one was shortly before I ate. That was smaller than the first grouping. The second felt like it would be larger but was controlled almost immediately."

"Wha—" _No, Hermione-girl, keep it simple and Don't Be Tiresome._ "How?"

He remained face-forward. "Lupin."

"What did he do?" _Oh, crap, stuck it in that one, didn't I?_ Asked the obvious...but then again...perhaps they'd found something new? She looked to him, hopeful.

He looked at her, condescending to answer. "Well, obviously, he Stupefied me."

She made an impatient gesture, "Have they tried nothing else?"

His scorn was rather sudden, "As in what, little miss know it all?" He turned to her, raked his black eyes down herself and back up again with contempt. "What _else_ do you propose they use on me? I'm not some lab rat for experimentation." His eyes narrowed on her, but she could see his shoulders shudder slightly in her periphery. Was that out of horror, fear, or indignity? Did it matter? Surely, there was something,

"I don't know, a Body-bind? A Confundus? Anything that's a trifle less harmful to your body when they use it!" She bit her lip as she reigned in her voice from reaching termagant levels. It would do them no good to start a shouting match and she rather feared Severus hadn't lost his ability to win a game of wits.

She shifted a step to the side, but he followed her, stalking her, "A Body-bind would only restrain me physically, not my magic if it's gone to a lower brain function and the same goes for the Confundus, a curse only useful for _higher_ brain functions and _fine_ motor skills." She blinked as he actually poked her in the forehead, "You _know_ this already in that bushy skull of yours! Don't waste my time with such sub-par suggestions!"

They shared a few steamed puffs of breath in the chilled air until he flattened his mouth and spun back off to pace away from her. "Now is _not_ the time for trials! I can feel the magic careening out of me when it happens and _it is destructive_." He emphasized his point with a slash of his hand and a glare over his shoulder. "Lupin is right, we're in the middle of a Muggle neighborhood and can't afford anything less."

For a moment, hope blossomed in her chest that Severus was back. He was there, right in front of her, stalking like a caged beast, spitting spite and vile vituperation and for the tiniest of moments, she could have sworn to see the ghost of his billowing robes shadowing behind him, his hair slinging and grabbing his face as he expressed his agitation.

He was there. It was almost like a Jekyll and Hyde, for the next moment, he was gone. As soon as he said the name Lupin, Severus had changed back to the unsure, defeated, shorn and worn man he'd become...the mere shadow of the vibrant and vile man he'd once been. She had watched his hand slash the air and that had dissipated the overlaid image, bringing home to her the fact that this man needed her, despite how much distance he was trying to lay between them.

She inhaled and lifted her chin, "So you did discuss it."

"What?" His confusion was evident, but she pressed on.

"The available options. You did discuss it and they didn't just randomly curse you with the first thing that worked."

He stopped his pacing, sighed and turned away from her. "Technically."

That low tone, nearly broken, full of contemplation, had her reaching for him, "Severus—"

He spun around with flared nostrils and an air of desperation. "You still haven't divulged that which you learned today." His pacing resumed, "Am I a walking curse? Will this dissipate? Can we stop it?"

What? What was he doing? "I don't know." His mercurial shifting was making her dizzy.

He smirked at her answer and kept talking, settling into his rant, "How is it affecting my body, my brain, every time it happens? Will I be a vegetable before it all ends?"

He was being so clinical over such awful questions. They needed to find out what drugs he had been on before they could find out any of that. "I don't know." To tell the truth, she didn't know if it was the medication causing his episodes or not—

He threw up his hands, "Was this something visited upon me? Is it drug induced? Is it a result of the Resurrection-"

God, why was he asking these questions! "I DON'T KNOW!"

He smirked again, turned to her and took two steps before folding his arms over his chest as he said, "Well, then what good are you, you insufferable know it all, if you 'don't know'?"

Insufferable—Irritating—Calloused—Unbelievable! He'd been doing this on purpose to make her feel just as off-kilter as he'd been! Sanctimonious Prick! Ugh! She carefully kept her mouth closed and her stance still, knowing her emotion glittered in her eyes for him to see. Arse. He'd probably just think he'd only taken the wind out of her sails and she was angry about not knowing something.

_Well, let him. _"I don't have to deal with this. I'm to make sure you're taken care of, fed, clothed, and healthy; and obviously, I'm upsetting you by not having answers to questions I can't find the answers to here." Part of her protection of him in this house was to find a way to reintroduce him into society and part of that would be to find out what went on at Hestry's, so one of the boys could take care of this malcontent until she got back with some answers and equilibrium.

Oh, it was so hard to come up with a happy memory in the midst of all this anger, but she thought of her first copy of Hogwarts: A History and the smell it had when she first cracked its pages. That usually did the trick. Well, at least she could do the messenger part of the Patronus Charm without difficulty. The full Patronus still gave her problems when she was agitated. She studied her little otter as the thought of who she would send it to. Harry or Ronald?[4]

Ah. Well, it would have to be Ronald. Harry would most likely be visiting Ginny tonight.[5] She sighed. That is, if Ron hadn't decided to stick his foot in and make a family visit out of it. She'd just have to wait and see, wouldn't she? It would probably save Harry an awkward moment if Ronald had to come back to help her, anyway.

_Ronald, please come look after Severus while I investigate something at Hestry's. The sooner, the better, _please_. Thank you._

After she watched her otter streak off into the foggy afternoon, her hazel gaze came back to settle on Severus's blank one. "As soon as Ronald gets back here, I'm heading out."

She didn't think he could become more still or his face more blank and deadened, but they did. "Abandoning you charge so soon, then?"

What was _with_ him? He had no right to—"Don't get cheeky with me**. ** Your precious answers are _outside_ these walls, and I do have a geas[6] to find them." Somehow, she felt having her hands on her hips was probably not wise, so she dropped them and relaxed her stance.

His eyes were mere slits. "A geas? You make it sound as if you're _honor_ _bound_." He sneered and backed up a step, then another. "There's no need for these theatrics, Miss Granger, I believe I can find my own way out."

And he turned to leave.

He walked down the steps, trod on the bit of vine laying innocently on the path and started around the pond.

It took that long for her brain to kick back into gear and run after him, nearly skidding on the wet stone before reaching the lawn. "Severus!"

He kept walking. Or rather, stomping. He'd reached the cattails.

"What do you think you're doing?" She'd almost reached him. God, no, not now! He couldn't leave! Someone would find him and kill him or something infinitely worse!

With desperation, she made a lunge and latched onto his upper arm. Cripes, it was skinny...

His forward momentum was halted and he turned to look at her as if she were an annoying insect. "Unhand me."

She tightened her hold, adding her other hand for safe measure. "Where are you going?"

"I have no intention of remaining where I am deemed a nuisance and have every intention of finding out what is happening to me." He glared at her hands. "Now unhand me."

Every bit of his former evil was reflected in his eyes and it took every bit of her Gryffindor bravery—foolish bravery—to hang on and tell him, "No."

He tugged his arm, she held on. He narrowed his eyes, leaned in towards her and tugged again, harder. She nearly stumbled, but turned it into rounding on him, coming around his front and pushing both her hands on his chest, back towards the folly.

She had no idea what the hell had gotten into her, but damnit, he Just Wouldn't Listen! "Stay!" There was danger for him out there and—_shove_—there was no way—_shove_—she was going to lose him again!

She pushed him one last time, each push gaining a little more ground, but this time, their feet got tangled, his hands grabbed her arms and her head came down on his chest.

She sighed. "Stay? Please?" She could feel his nose, his face—what was it doing in her hair—she started to lift her head but hit his instead. They'd maintained an awkward balance until then, but at that, they tripped spectacularly in each others feet and hit the ground hard.

"Oot!"

How had she not noticed how bony his body was last night? Oh, good grief, had the Cushioning Charm on the Hammock made that much of a difference? She rolled a bit, got her foot stuck on his trousers and landed against him again, painfully. Her eyes came to rest on his scar...the big one. She inhaled.

/

He was breathing indignantly through his mammoth nostrils until he noticed her stilling above him. He looked down his face to see what she was up to, his arms out by his head and lifting, ready to shove her off if need be.

Instead, when he saw exactly what the vexing witch was staring at, he reached his hand over to cover it. She wasn't allowed to stare at that scar. Not that one. Not when it was so easily as much her fault...

Yes, that's right, she was there, wasn't she? She'd been there, collecting his mind as it seeped out his ears, running away as he exsanguinated on the floor of that place he was apparently destined not to die. First Black's deadly prank...in school?...then the snake...[7]

His memories swirled as if she'd slipped a stir in the top of his brain, churning the mass like so much soup.

It spun around again to them collecting his memories, her, Potter, Weasley...They had been there. They had been there and done nothing. He looked into her eyes above him now as then. Had he even wanted them to?

Even ignoring that question, why had he not received at least a burial? Even as traitorous and despicable as he remembered being in half-lit memories, there could never have been a time when he'd not wanted at least a proper burial. Did they have a tombstone for him somewhere? Some sickeningly non-descript epitaph, like 'Here lies Severus Tobias Snape' born and dead. Did anyone even know what he'd done for them? For so long?

Things were coming back to him in painful waves and it was worse with her lying atop him, staring at his hand, at his face, breathing on him with her justified life. Had they even gone looking for him after the Battle?

Quietly, he stared into her eyes and asked her, "So, tell me? How long after you watched me pass away from this world did you actually come back to look for my poor, forgotten body? Mmm?"

He slipped his hand away to reveal his scar and watched her digest his question with anticipation.

Her eyes flicked from his face to the scar and she became flustered, confused. She sat up off of him, to the side and tucked a curl of hair behind her ear. "I—what?"

He sat up, keeping his predatory gaze on her as he pushed the subject, "Oh. My mistake. You didn't actually come, _yourself_, did you?"

She shifted her seat, moving a bit backwards. "W-huh?"

"Who did come looking for me?" He moved closer to her, hoping to make her feel hunted, cornered. "Potter?" Noble brat. "Poppy?" She would, too. Despite others needing her more, she'd always had a soft spot for him. Why wasn't the girl saying anything? "The Ministry? _How_ _long_?"

He cornered her up against a Linden trunk...or was it supposed to be called a Lime, now?[8] Regardless, he had her pinned with nothing more than proximity and a look and she braced herself against the bark.

"Excuse me?" Her foot shifted, slipped from gripping the grass and shot out towards him. He looked down at it, then back up at her,

"Hours? Days?" He crawled towards her, looming over her, "Weeks?"

Her voice was down to a whisper, "What are you—"

There. She was perfectly ready for him to strike and he'd have the high ground again. None of this wavering between them, no more suggestion and possibility when she was supposedly spoken for. He watched her eyes carefully as he slid forward and spoke low, darkly, into her ear, "Did you expect to find my corpse rotting on the dried and dusty floor, flies laying maggots in the putrid, flayed flesh?"

He'd whispered the disgusting question intimately, as intimately as his position crawling over, never touching her and her breath had heightened, agitated to the point where she'd cried out in response,

"Severus!" Shock and revulsion swept across her face in beautiful succession. "No!" Tears rolled out of her large eyes as they stared so incredulously at him.

"Oi!"

She turned, startled, to see the Weasley over his shoulder. Severus watched her face recover composure, then cast a speculative look back at the boy standing amidst the cattails. He walked over with a rectangular box under one arm and Severus took the wiser course, shifting himself away from Hermione, shuttering his greedy expression from them both.

"I dunno what's been going on, but I think that last bit was a bit too far, eh?" He reached over to Hermione and gave her a hand up. She took it and surreptitiously wiped her face with the back of her hand. "Mione, go on. I can handle him while you run off to Hestry's. You alright?"

Hestry's! Severus scrambled to his feet and went to address Hermione but Weasley's arm blocked his way. "You little _hoyden_! You're going back there and weren't going to tell me?"

She stumbled around to face him, looking from him to Weasley, then back again. Was that irritation on her face? How dare she become—

"How else am I to find out what they've got you on? They might even have some of the medication there."

Impudent brat! "What, so you can steal it and bring it back here?" Weasley moved between them, but he sneered and paced away, back towards the folly. "I told you, I'm no one's lab rat!" _Never_ that! He knew perfectly well what it felt like to be tortured like that, to have to watch as someone was forced one's concoction, just to see what it would do. The Half-Blood Prince lost quite a bit of his verve for experimentation once literally faced with the consequences.

He blinked. Where had that name come from? It was his, nonetheless. He sighed and took another step. It didn't matter, now.[9]

The witch was calling after him. He rolled his eyes. Of course she was. "You don't have a choice, Severus!" Didn't he? She didn't remember who she was dealing with, then. "If I don't put you back on it within the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours, your body could have catastrophic failure of multiple functions and we don't have access to medical facilities that can handle that." He stopped walking, taking in her words, the ramifications, what she was saying now and what she'd not been saying before. "You're showing the signs of a serious dependency and quitting treatment abruptly like this could kill you!"

He turned halfway round and looked at the two of them. She was standing in front of the ginger boy, eyes glittering at Severus in frustration. He waited for her to continue, just as she was waiting for him to respond to her. He'd be damned if he'd give her that satisfaction.

"Haven't you been paying attention, Professor?"

His eyes flicked narrow for a moment, his mind readying a barb sure to cut, but she continued,

"No? Too busy spitting out your vitriol, then? Well. I'll just be on my way, _back_ to Tinnet Hall, to save your backside, _again._" She turned away from him and muttered something to the boy that sounded something like 'ungrateful bastard' but he felt the need to let her leave more keenly than the need to cut her down. "Thank you, Ronald, I shouldn't be gone more than an hour."

At that, she stomped off toward the house with a final glance flung over her shoulder at Severus. The look that passed between them was only a few seconds, but it was something filled with...

Too many things to think about right now. He had his health to worry about. Catastrophic failure? He felt fine, really...he looked down to his hands that were trembling ever so slightly.

"Well, that went well."

Severus clenched his hands and speared Weasley with a dark look, "Oh, sod off." Little Bugger. He didn't need a babysitter, and why in Hades wasn't Weasley yapping at him about the inappropriate situation he'd found them in? Or their spiteful words?

All he did was just rock back on his heels and lead them the rest of the way to the folly. "No, not likely. I am, however, to keep you quiet and entertained until she gets back."

He was either completely whipped, completely oblivious, or completely lovesick. This boy had no qualms about Severus talking like that to his...whatever? Even though he knew the answer to his next question, he asked it just to see what the answer would be, "Why you? Why not one of the others?"

Weasley mounted the steps, but turned back at the top, "Oh, fancy being babysat by an old school chum, even if he is a werewolf?"[10]

Severus advanced, met and stood to his full height in incredulity. "Are you all _insane_? You're housing a _werewolf_ on the premises? Why don't we invoke the Dark Lord as an Inferius? We'll have a matched set!" Truly and completely mad! Yes, why not? They already had three Resurrected individuals, one of which was a werewolf, so why not? Why not have something else insane like Voldemortian Inferi? Yes, of course, that made perfect sense! The idiots!

Come to think of it, why _did_ Lupin come through the veil, so to speak, with his infection intact? Wouldn't dying rather have solved his problem? Or did Resurrection also resurrect every sickness one died with? That meant he, himself, would have needed his own infection taken care of. Severus paced a circle inside the cupola when no response came, working through the ramifications.

At the boy's mocking question, Severus had remembered that prank, that time in the Shack before...and again many years later...Oh, Great Merlin, they'd housed him with the enemy! But...he'd talked to him that very morning, had accepted his help and had an intelligent conversation with him.

Severus nearly groaned in frustration as he turned and stared back out to the greenery, searching for some kind of order, some sanity in the chaos of memory floating around in his brain. Lupin wasn't the enemy, but his werewolf was indeed to be feared—a sound behind him forced him to pay attention to whatever it was that Weasley had been doing.

Obviously he'd not remembered his manners, for he was performing magic right in front of him. "I thought I'd made mys—"

"Oh, shut up, it's just a table and chairs." Severus imagined leaping forward and throttling the boy for such effrontery but he rather thought it would be nice to sit on something other than hard floor or grass. He watched Weasley conjure up his furniture and continue blithely, "And you should know we have Remus under control. It's your version of the Wolfsbane Hermione brews up for him every month."

What? How much more did this _person_ know? Seeing the word CHESS printed neatly on the box under Weasley's arm, Severus understood the perfect opportunity to gain information via a neutral, if not quite friendly, game, as well as offering an opportunity to see how good this prat really was.

He watched as the young man set the box down and broke the plastic wrapping. "Harry and I went especially to Hamley's to pick this up."[11]

Was that supposed to mean something special to him? "Not that it really matters, but _where_?"

Weasley smiled at the opportunity to talk about the place. "Oh, it's this awesome Muggle toy shop and it was no hardship to go, believe you me, even if it was to protect your sensibilities." He gestured to Severus with his wand, then vanished the clear cellophane. "We figured you'd bark if you played wizarding chess, so we went and got a Muggle set."

Bark?

Severus moved to sit in the accompanying chair.

Him?

Even during the less-than-sane events of the previous two years, he'd never been a raving lunatic. Starved for information and perhaps a little human decency, yes, but never insane.

Well, now that he'd been proven sane by Hermione's arrival yesterday morning...

He wondered how she was faring at Hestry's. Would she be wandering the corridors, or go straight for his office? If it were up to him, and if she'd given him time to discuss it, he'd have directed her to the storage room down the hall from Hestry. He'd seen an entire wall of records there, passing by an open door.

Weasley finished setting up the pieces on the board and swiveled it to face between them. "I assume you want to play Black?"

"No, I don't."

"Really? Huh, that's surprising. Never caught you wearing anything but black, and with your hair and all...I figured..."

Severus studied the board with the beginnings of tactics and stratagem unraveling slowly through his mind. He glanced up in response, "White has the beginning advantage."

"Well, yeah."

"So why would I want to be Black?"

"Cause...well...I dunno."

Severus sighed in annoyance. The boy obviously wanted to play White, but also wanted to offer choice of color to Severus. Now those two options conflicted. As always, a Gryffindor was perfectly fine being magnanimous as long as it suited him.

The boy shrugged and dug into his trousers for something. "Whatever. We'll flip for it. Call it?"

He snorted. "Heads, of course. A Slytherin always rises above."

Weasley smirked at him, "Well, I'll take 'tail' any day of the week."

Severus rolled his eyes at such juvenile humor and watched the coin fly, glint, then land with a soft pat in Weasley's hand. He slapped it down onto his fist.

"Ha! I get...aw, bugger. Fine." With a huff, Weasley swiveled the board around for White to face Severus. "Here, go ahead."

He was very proud of himself for only smirking in triumph a little bit. Letting that thought go, he studied the board, thinking of an opening move and an opening question. E2-E4 kept rolling through his brain as the strongest and most versatile, leaving him open for different avenues, so he took a quiet breath and made the motion. He glanced up to Weasley. "She uses my formula, you say?"[12]

The boy paused, looked up, then pushed his pawn into the opening of a Sicilian Defense. Hmm. "Yeah. It takes her all day and she's right scary afterwards, but after Slughorn refused, there wasn't anyone else Remus could trust, you know? So she...erm... got hold of your notes and stuff and made it."

That surprised him. "Why did Horace refuse?"

Weasley gave him a funny look and laughed, "Well, he didn't want to be caught anywhere near a werewolf that was supposed to be dead but wasn't, now did he?"

Severus had been reaching forward to shift another pawn to C3 in Alapin's Variation, but paused with his hand over the board, giving Weasley a hard look. How much did he know? Hermione had dismissed his knowing anything out of hand, but obviously she had been wrong. The question was: did he continue asking him about his opinion on the Resurrected, or continue pinching him for information along the current conversation?

He completed the move and decided that current information was more important. "How did Hermione obtain my papers?"

Weasley's eyes flickered a bit when he used her given name, but he answered without pause. "She petitioned the school...McGonagall gave 'em over."

Minerva. She'd gone through his things and given them away to...well, at the time, a student. Weasley moved his pawn. He snapped down his own, Weasley followed suit, then they each took turns capturing pawns at D5. Severus made a face in annoyance and legged his knight to F3.

Had she done it to help Lupin? Of course she did, that woman had protected her cubs more fiercely than Dumbledore—[13]

_Albus_.

Weasley slipped his hand over the head of his knight and moved it to C6. Severus automatically reached for his bishop. The man with the pointy hat. _Oh, Albus, what have I done? What happened?_

Weasley moved his bishop.

Severus blinked at the board in irritation. "Are you just following my moves or do you have anything original to do here? Hermione said you were singular in your abilities with this game and I'd hoped that might be true with your choosing it as an entertainment, but if you're just going to parrot my moves—" He snatched up a black pawn and slammed his down in place.

Weasley furrowed his brow and slowly took the white pawn with his bishop. "Did you do that on purpose?"

Of course he'd done it on purpose. "Why wouldn't I?" _It's called sacrifice, you nitwit. But then, I rather had the corner on that market, didn't I?_

Weasley looked carefully around the board. "I dunno, you could be trying to set me up for something."[14]

"Well, then I guess you're on your guard, then, aren't you?" With a smirk, Severus took the opportunity to Castle, knowing it would completely confuse his opponent.

Weasley blinked hard. "Do you even know what you're doing?"

He arched a brow at the boy. He knew it was unorthodox to switch the king and rook so early, but really, "The question is: do you? I do believe Castling is a Defensive measure, allowable in this game, is it not?"

"Well, yeah." With speculative look, he shifted his knight to E7 and out of the way to copy Severus' move. He snorted. _Of course_. Was this really the chess wonder that everyone extolled in the boy's first year?

He smirked at the phony prodigy. "Did I execute it incorrectly?"

Weasley jutted out his chin. "No."

Severus placed his knight to D2. "Are you sure you know what _you're_ doing?"

Weasley did not respond, but completed the Castling he'd started in the previous move.

"Back to parroting, I see."

"Oh, just shut it and play, would you?"

Severus smirked, slid his knight to threaten Weasley's bishop and waited for him to retreat the black bishop before asking the question that burned in his mind ever since Hermione had landed so hard on him that afternoon. "How long was it before someone came looking for me? The night I supposedly died?"

"Mm?" He looked up from the board, startled. "Oh, well, it was that night. Tonks n' Remus had 'woken up' so everyone had to be accounted for and proven dead or alive."

He shivered involuntarily. The methods the Ministry would have employed..."Proven?" He felt the bile rise in his throat and pushed his rook over to threaten the black knight. The symbolism was not lost on him.[15]

He stared at the board, taking in all the pieces, not seeing anything, really, until Weasley did the only thing he could and moved his knight to F5.

He had to get that knight! Hmm. Ah! The advanced bishop would be able to slip backwards and threaten the knight again—

"Yeah, you were the only one missing. Even ickle Malfoy showed up in the Great Hall with his parents. Thought for sure we'd gotten him earlier, but ah well."

How, in that entire battle, had he been the only one missing? And what was that about Malfoy? Something niggled in the back of his brain about that. Blast! He'd been too caught up in Weasley's response to actually see where he moved his piece! Where had he moved it?

With a slight tremor, Severus took the knight with his bishop and watched in frustration as the boy looked at him strangely. Weasley reached forward and slid his bishop home to capture the bishop he'd just moved, but said nothing.

Severus took prerogative and leaned back in his seat before making a move. "So, why was my body allowed to be left...unproven?"

Weasley followed suit. "Ah, well, that was a bit tricky. Kingsley felt it was safer to declare you dead, you see? Your house had already been ransacked—sorry mate—and with rumors flying about with your body missing, every crime was yours or 'Snape made me do it', until Harry stood up at your posthumous trial. Hermione, too."[16]

"Not you?" His whirlwhind explanation left nothing to the imagination. It seemed a mockery...to have given so much, only to be swept under the rug as an inconvenience. Who cared about that coal scuttle of a house[17]—well, except for the books, Sweet Merlin, the books!—but...He'd had a posthumous trial? What for? If he was dead, why would there be a trial?

"Nah, I dunno anything about you, really. But Harry did, and Hermione figured it out, I guess. I was still pretty steamed over Fred and Dumbledore and, well, everything..." He shrugged and looked suggestively at the board.

Severus ignored the suggestion. "Who went to look for me?"

"Um...ah, well, we all did, Harry and 'Mione and me and Professor McGonagall...Madame Pomfrey..." He stretched his arms over his head, then relaxed back down. "A team from St. Mungo's had already taken over the Hall, and those that were able were helping..." He snorted, "'cept the Malfoys. They did a runner as soon as they could, didn't they? Slimy...Oh, sorry." He looked up in apology, but Severus simply leveled a deadpan stare and slid his remaining bishop up to take point at Weasley's rook.

Weasley stared at him as if he'd lost his mind and shifted his rook one step over. Severus smirked and took his rook with his own, still having it set in place from his earlier run at Weasley's knight and having the added benefit of, "Check."

"Oi!"

Severus was about to chuckle until he saw his opponent finger his queen. Damn! Well, there had to be sacrifices, that was part of winning, wasn't it? He completed the move and took Severus' rook.

They both took in the board and possible strategy. He glanced up at the boy and wondered if changing topic in their conversation might distract him. Something from before, perhaps? "What, exactly, did Minerva hand over?"

Severus leaned back again, unwilling to make his next move until Weasley answered him.

He finally got the hint, sighed, and sat back, himself. "Lots of paper, most of which I never even looked at. Some trunks that I think are in the attic. Maybe a few other things, but I dunno, you'd have to ask Hermione. She's probably catalogued it all and memorized the list, then spell-o-taped it on the inside back cover of the latest edition of Hogwarts: A History." He smiled at his own little joke. Severus was not amused.[18]

He moved his knight into a defensive position at D4.

After a few moments and a cockey flick of his ginger brow, Weasley reached forward and dropped his queen in place one spot away.

Hmm. Time for the verbal sparring if he really wanted to set Weasley off. "You know, you're not very complimentary of your betrothed. I'd have pegged you to be the drooling, dotty type of swain that would fawn all over your dearest love." He pushed a pawn forward.

Weasley randomly made a move with his bishop and while Severus dithered over whether to move his own bishop, the boy replied, "Yeah, you'd be right, too, 'cept 'Mione's not the type of gal that wants to be drooled on..." He smirked and looked up at Severus, "Regardless of how she wakes up in the morning."

They exchanged several more pointless moves in silence until Severus just couldn't resist pushing it a little farther, "My, my, trouble in paradise?"

Weasley slammed his rook into place. "Tch, that ship sailed off and left this bloke on the dock holding the luggage with the ticket paid for, if you know what I mean."

A few more moves in silence, Weasley sullenly shifting his pieces as Severus tried to understand what he'd meant. "No, I don't think I can wrap my mind around that metaphor. Please clarify."

The boy blinked up at him. "I asked her to marry me, she said no." They blinked at each other. "I had the ring, I was on my knee in front of my whole family, right? And what does she say? No. Just that. Ta!" He moved his knight with a firm tap.

Could it really be? Was it possible he'd simply misread their interactions? With a small trifle of hope, Severus took Weasley's bishop with one of his own. "I must say, I am rather...surprised."

"At what? No one else seems to be." He pushed his bishop across the board.

"No, I'm not surprised she refused your suit—"

Weasley threw up his arm, "Fantastic, another one."

"But I am surprised you are both still so amicable. Up to the point that I was under the impression you were both still together." Severus looked down in surprise at the piece he was about to move. The queen. He'd been avoiding his queen the entire game, to the detriment of the left side of the board and handicapping him that rook. He slightly shook his head in wonder, in worry. How much was she going to affect his life like this? With a silent, inward breath and a bit of resolve, he employed his queen to D4.

Weasley narrowed his eyes, floated his hand above the board and twitched his fingers, then swiftly grabbed his bishop and dropped it down to F3. "Check. Yeah...well...she and Harry...well, we're the same people, right? What I love about her didn't change just because we're not gonna get married, did it? I just...I just had to put her in another parcel, that's all."

That...was an impressive bit of logic, actually. Severus immediately moved his king the only place he could and Weasley backed off to shift his queen on another part of the board. He quickly looked around his pieces for something to shift over for better protection. And just what did he mean by, "Another parcel?"

He waved his hand in the air dismissively. "You know what I mean, compartmentalize. I had to just square it all away...You know?" He completed his move and sat back again.

Severus contemplated what Weasley meant by that and shifted his queen into position to start attacking his king. The boy snorted at him and slammed his pawn down diagonal to the queen.

He simply moved his queen forward and created a line to corral the king. Now he'd have to move the king to dissipate the threat. He smirked and remembered why he loved playing this game.

"Fuck."

"Indeed."

Weasley studied the board, his eyes flickering over it as if working through a mental maze. After a few silent moments, he slowly shifted his rook forward, neutralizing the queen.

Interesting. And difficult. Hmm. His pieces were across the board and effectively blocked, the only thing he could do at this point would be to take the rook, but that would...

Yes, sacrifice the queen. And that's precisely what Weasley did. He didn't like it. He didn't like being reminded of a forced hand, a forced sacrifice. He moved his knight forward, hoping to gain some sort of ground with a new piece, but Weasley quashed that quickly by capturing it with his own knight.

The black knight.

The deadly knight.

He saw an opening. The _dead_ knight! He took that piece triumphantly with his bishop and after the boy moved his bishop backwards, he struck again, taking a pawn along the far diagonal. There! Now he had a strong line across a good third of the board!

They dithered for a few moves until Weasley moved his queen over to negate his bishop's power. Severus shifted the wrong pawn forward, lost the other, then pushed his bishop closer to the other grouping to focus his power since Weasley had divided it.

Ah, now he was employing that blasted black bishop again. At least he still had his rook's protection...no.

No, no, no! He should have seen this coming! Damn it all to hell and back, the little bugger was using the queen versus rook endgame and he had no room to set up a javelin. He obligingly slammed his pieces into place, since he had no bloody choice, and glared as Weasley crowed, "Checkmate!"

Severus grunted in concession to the apelike celebration of his opponent.

"A-hah, that was brilliant!"

He sneered at the boy who was beaming so brightly. He supposed that was a good game, though he doubted his own form was what it could be. Memories missing, and all that. Nonetheless, "That was interesting. I'll have to keep in mind that personal attacks during chess make you a viable opponent."

Weasley's smile faltered and he set the pieces he could reach back on the board. "Mmm. Yeah, I guess so. She always thought it was boring."

So easily back onto the subject of Hermione? How interesting, "What, chess?"

"Uh-huh."

Severus watched the boy—well, he supposed he could concede the point of young man—reach across the table for the last few pieces. Now that he thought about it, there really would be only three things in his way of pursuing Hermione: his health and livelihood, her acceptance, and, "Do you still love her?"

Weasley palmed a knight and pointed, "Now that is a freaking weird question coming from you, mate."

He waved his hand to continue, "Regardless, the question remains."

Weasley eyed him, finished placing the pieces and settled back in the chair, thinking through his answer. Their eyes met over the board, held, then Weasley released the stare as he shrugged. "I love her. But it's one of those things where you're not quite sure of the right definition of the word, anymore." He dropped his head sideways into his hand, partially covering his face with his fingers. "I don't wake up with her dribbling on my foot, and I don't see that look in her eyes just before...well, you know..." He shrugged again. "But I think I'm starting to wonder if I might have something like that with another witch. I mean, it's not like I have a lifelong obsession like you did with Harry's mum—"

"_What_?" Finally! Something informative! Severus leaned forward eagerly.

Weasley clapped his hand over his mouth. "Gah! I didn't say anything!" He cringed in his chair and ran the hand from his mouth through his hair, leaving it sticking up in several directions. "Shite, Hermione's gonna kill me!"

Severus was ready to do something violent. He grasped the edge of the table to control himself, "Everyone's been dancing around this subject and it's starting to get _ridiculous_. Would you please tell me at the very least the _name_ of the person you're all referring to?"

"No. Uh-uh."

Childish! "It's just a name, Weasley."

"There's power in a name, you know that."

Was he that afraid of Hermione? "This isn't the Dark Lord, it's just a woman."

A female voice interjected from across the lawn, "_Lily_. Her name was Lily."

Severus turned his head sharply to see where her voice came from. Hermione was walking toward them from the end of the land bridge at the edge of the pond. How long had she been there? He slid his gaze to Weasley. Surely he was wondering the same thing.

"Hermione!" Weasley jumped up and strode down the steps to meet her on the green. "I—we just finished up our game. How long h-have you been here?"

They stood there and stared at each other in their uneven heights. She reached up and patted his cheek in a very platonic fashion. "I'm glad to know you're thinking about possibilities, Ronald."

He swallowed, she dropped her hand and crossed her arms at her chest. He looked to panic, glancing between Severus and Hermione. "Right then. I'll just be on my way, unless you still need me? No? I'll just go...tie my shoelaces round my neck for a bit, then."[19]

It was hard not to laugh at his rather audible whimper as he loped off into the evening.

He watched her slowly climb the few steps and drop into the empty seat across from him with a heavy sigh. She scrubbed her face with her hands then peeked out between her fingers at him. It was an interesting look she was giving him, as if he were a particularly Vexing Problem and Fascinating Specimen all together. He kept watching her as he tried to decide which he'd rather be.

She dropped her hands to her lap, looked down to the floor, "So." A breeze shifted her bedraggled curls as he waited for her to continue. Had she found anything on her brief expedition? Why was she back so quickly?

Come to look at her, she looked rather harried. She shifted back in her seat and angled so she could look at him. Ah. He was now the Fascinating Specimen.

Well, at least that was a better place to start than Vexing Problem. He held her gaze until she looked down at the board, picked up the queen and tapped it in an uneven tattoo.

She looked back up at him.

The realization hit him that she must have failed. That would be the only reason she'd be sitting there, fidgeting with a wooden figurine instead of barreling into discussion like she always seemed to do.

Her mouth opened, she took a breath, he waited...

She went back to tapping the queen.

Well, there was only so much of this he could take.

"Hermione!"

She jumped.

"What?"

So innocent. Bah! "What!"

She flinched. Not from fear of him, he could tell and was thankful. No, she flinched from something she wanted to say. And that made her next word all the more anticipated when she asked it in a very small voice, "Nothing?"

Severus deflated backwards in surprise, having no idea, "Nothing, as in what?"

She dropped the queen into place, straightened it, then flipped her hand in a gesture, trying to explain herself, "No reactions? No panic attacks? No booming explosions of uncontrollable magic?"

He blinked. "What are you havering about, woman?"

"Lily. I told you her name, Ronald told you who she was to you, but...nothing?"

Hermione's face was crumpled in confusion, and for his own face, well, he was sure there would be something equally undignified.

But she was right.

Nothing. "No." He exhaled in wonder, finding the landscape for order in his thoughts again.

Thank whatever gods were watching over this farce of recollection, for Hermione was blessedly silent as he contemplated the totality, the enormity of the situation.

If he'd felt a sense of awakening when he met Hermione again, if he'd understood his life when he met Harry...if he'd only begun to realize what Albus meant to him...

But Lily...

How could she be one of the four sets of eyes but be nothing to him? How? He'd felt the kindred spirit and friendship rolling from behind the anger and bitterness, the longing...

Nothing...

Why?

How could she elicit nothing from him _now_?

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><p>THANK YOU EVER SO MUCH FOR READING AND EVEN IF YOU DON'T LIKE SOMETHING, PLEASE LEAVE A WAY FOR ME TO WRITE BACK. I promise I won't fly off the handle or berate you for having an opinion. You can ask anyone on this site who's interacted with me, I try to be fairly even-minded on criticism. Other than that, I LOVE IT WHEN YOU LOVE IT TOO! HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE! PLEASE REVIEW!<p> 


	11. Chapter 11

A/N: normal disclaimer, not mine, blah blah. Also, a bit shorter than last time. And a bit faster pace with some actual information! *gasp!* We're moving along, people! Please, as you read this, understand it is disjointed in places on purpose and I hope it came across that way. Forgive me if it didn't. Yiggersentia slapped me around a few times, but all faults are mine. Also, most of Snape's flashbacks in his 'nightmare' are direct quotes from HP:DH ch.33. I've just taken A LOT of artistic license with how they're played in his mind to fit what I want it to say. It's symbolism, gimme a break ;) Lastly, THANK YOU EVERYONE for your fantastic words of encouragement and praise, your critiques and questions. I love them all! Happy New Year! xoxo Dena

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><p><strong><span>Chapter 11<span>**

He sat and stared quietly at the white queen in front of him, contemplating the shape, the carving, the deliberation in such a tiny piece of...plastic. Such a pretty piece, full of curves and turns, statuesque in her own right...proud.

Was that what Lily had been like? Proud?

Severus reached forward for it, running his thumb along the crowning ridge as he grasped it, wondering how many thousands of mass-produced items were just like this one...

Is that how he'd seen her? Focusing singly upon her unique package when instead he might have been overlooking any triteness in a possibly carbon-copy creature?

Well, that put a perspective on things, didn't it?

Little things danced on the edge of his mind like hoarfrost on a leaf, delicate, so easy to break at the slightest touch. Silken red hair, emerald eyes...shared moments flashed across his mind, faded like old silk...kinship...laughter...

Those emerald eyes framed with bitterness and betrayal...

He blinked, tightened his hold on the queen, and shook his head slightly, dismissively turning in his chair even as Hermione watched him cross his arms and look off to the greenery once more.

He remembered what the woman looked like now, at least. It was a connection to the eyes from his safe place, a logical conclusion—would that make it correct? Regardless, it was a hazy recollection at best, as if viewing what memories he had through a gauzy curtain.

No. Something was missing, and that something was more than the obvious amnesia of who the woman was. She was obviously someone... special to him and someone who linked him and Potter—the eyes made that much obvious—but there was something larger, deeper, sunk underneath the quagmire of identity.

There was a depth that should _be_ there that wasn't.

It was a strange feeling, knowing there was a hole but not knowing what filled it. Ha! A hole. He wasn't some plot in the ground! Not yet!

Severus took an unsteady breath and watched it dissipate into the gloaming, casting about for some explanation or reasoning for the empty hole...

He wasn't some plot in the ground...not yet, he repeated to himself...not anymore...

Narrowing his eyes to look for any wayward migratory birds that seemed to herald something painful to come, he scanned the boughs for flits of movement. Hmph. Nothing so far, but it was hard to see in this lack of light.

The river of dark branches took his mind back down a dark road. Had he been dead? Had he been a ghost? He might as well be now, for all the life he'd be able to live. He gritted his teeth in overwhelming anger, remembering Weasley's words,

"_Kingsley felt it was safer to declare you dead, you see? Your house had already been ransacked—__sorry mate—and with rumors flying about with your body missing, every crime was yours or 'Snape made me do it'_,"

Dead! He'd been declared dead, his house ransacked—all those years collecting information—books! Wasted! His collective tenure as professor and Death Eater couldn't have been more succinctly put: Wasted!

He pulled his gaze from the garden to the domed ceiling of the folly, leaning his head back against the chair in defeat.

He should be dead. Everyone thought so, even the ministry. Even D—

Even the almighty insufferable one across from him this very moment had said he _should_ be dead. And when he left here, for surely he couldn't eat off Potter's table indefinitely, begging for scraps like some dog, some beggar, some leprous attachment of his household...

What then?

For lack of anything better to show up in his life and demand his presence, he had NOTHING!

He shoved himself up, away, out, down the steps of the folly, his heart beating a staccato tympani in his chest so hard it hurt his ears, stole his breath, tingled his fingers and toes. Pacing along the water's edge, staring at the glittering surface, his mind worked furiously through the narrowing facets of memory as they slumped together into some semblance of a narrative.

Burning brightly in the crucible of his mind was the foremost theme of _betrayal_.

_A snake, an evil, a battle on the edge of reason...a few passing memories of magic, twinkling eyes falling off a precipice that was somehow his doing...staring at him with forgiveness and sadness._

_Do you trust me?_ She'd asked him, so early on. Why should she show him so much trust as to ask for it in return? He, who'd betrayed things so precious to him in his...previous life that they haunted his dreams in the purgatory he knew now.

He remembered being pushed, mentally, into the dark water of his safe place. Staring at the pond before him, he wondered if the symbolism held true. Had it been a form of brutal protection, or something worse...

His mind skittered across that idea towards a snippet of something he'd said to Hermione before:

"_Am I supposed to feel something specific?" Something other than fear, devastation, betrayal, hatred, anger, love, confusion...Something that he could actually admit aloud? _

Then, just as adroitly, his mind turned corner towards another conversation, another bout of anger, this time heard from the Weasley boy,

"_She always ends up in the weirdest places in bed,"_

What was he supposed to think about her now? Again, turning away from the thought as well as the path he was taking, he spun on his heel in another direction,

"_How long have you known that I'd been Resurrected? Who else have you told?"_

"_Does it even occur to you I may have valuable information to contribute?"_

Oh dear Merlin. _Valuable information._ Of course he was searching his memories for perfidy, he'd been a spy for decades! He snorted, turned again, breathing heavier in the colder air as the sun set, turning the air a queer shade of bruised yellow-green.

It was simply who he was.

Spy. Murderer. Traitor.

Over and over again, relentless, in every direction, his life had apparently been ruled by it, defined by it. Either he had been betrayed, or had been the betrayer, but it colored his life like a rosette window, the many different facets and pieces forming a work that spoke only one story:

Treachery.

_Treachery!_

Anger making him insensate to the evening around him, he stumbled, then stepped out of his mind into a foggy clearing. He paused, catching his breath on the scene before him, knowing it wasn't real, but _had been_ real at one time...

This place was familiar, but not in a comforting sense. It reminded him of bad air, hiding, his first forays into spying, his own voice, _"It's obvious, isn't it?"_ A trio of children argued, danced in uncertainty around a playset...they looked so very familiar, the boy and two girls...

He peered closer, stepped carefully around the overgrowth surrounding the clearing, hiding him from their view. He'd been here before...many, many years before...

"_You're that _Snape_ boy!"_

His eyes flared as the dark haired girl flounced off and her redheaded sister followed. The boy, himself, stood in consternation. He remembered that feeling, not knowing what had gone wrong with his carefully planned approach, but never taking the prejudiced sister into consideration.

The mist grew heavy, obscuring his view, and stirred before him. Like through a curtain parting, a man with two different eyes and a surly mood swept through the dense fog with a hard, limping stride and stared him down. "I say there are spots that don't come off... Spots that never come off, d'you know what I mean?"

That crazed blue eye swirled in its magical socket once, then pinned back on Severus like a dart thrown with deadly precision.

Spots?

He looked down to his arm, his left arm, the blank canvas that once was painted with the darkest magic.

Never? But it _had_ come off...

He felt a tug on his clothing, distracting him from the man before him. The redheaded girl from the playset was now behind Severus, pulling on his black, black, billowing robes. He turned to her young, beautiful face pouting in a disdainful tone, "But you call everyone of my birth Mudblood, Severus. Why should I be any different?"

Echoes of words, fights, insults, curdled in his mind like old milk.

"_I see no difference."_

The girl's face flitted between long and round, eyes shifted between green and brown, hair red to brown and back again...some trick of the light or eye or Muggle cinematic falsehood made his vision falter on the girl before him. When her form finally stalled, Lily, at first ageless, now aged before him into a lovely, lovely woman. She smiled at him with her emerald eyes. He felt a pull behind his heart, wanting to answer that smile, but not knowing how.

Before he could move his face into the tiniest smile, an august, bearded old man, familiar to him now, again, walked up out of the fog behind her and glared over her shoulder. "You disgust me. You do not care, then, about the deaths of her husband and child? They can die as long as you have what you want?" He snatched the girl away from him, tossed her aside as if she were nothing...

"_All the time I was watching you..."_

He tried to go to her as she lay crumpled on the grass, but every step took him into mist, heavier and heavier, pulling his steps and his lungs. _Lily_...

There was a twitter of laughter, and a darker snark to his left that had him peering through the gloaming to find the children sitting there, "Oh yes, they're arguing, but it won't be that long and I'll be gone."

The wave of helplessness and frustration belted into him from his parents invaded his senses. No wonder Lily, in all her fiery independence, had intrigued him so early. She was the antithesis of his obedient, self-trapped mother. He was never so glad as to leave that house...

Something happened between the children and the girl stood up screaming, pointing at her injured sister. "Did you make that happen?"

"No."

"You did! You _did!_ You hurt her!"

"No—no I didn't!"

"_She's only a—"_

Dumbledore stalked between his vision, ripping it to tendrils of mist. "I prefer not to put all of my secrets in one basket, particularly not a basket that spends so much time dangling on the arm of Lord Voldemort."

He responded automatically, as if from a script already written, "Which I do on your orders!"

_What could he do to prove himself?_ "The prophecy...the prediction...Trelawney..."

Trelawney. Yes, she was the turning point, wasn't she? As if by call, Sybill glided up out of the cloudy ground only to stare at him from behind her buggish glasses and many scarves, her magnified eyes darting over his body as if to divine some higher purpose. He snorted at her apparent inventory. Such a waste of a gift, of a teaching post on this woman!

A chill ran through him, around him, over his hands and neck like a Dementor's breath. Trelawney faded away into nothing, her eyes the last he could see in the darkness closing about him.

Yes, darkness.

There had been another teacher caught in these many machinations, hadn't there? A dark form, floating, lifeless, conceived of the very fog surrounding him, pushed forward and revealed itself to be a woman's corpse, blue and purple in all the wrong ways, trussed and inverted in the air beside him so that he had to turn and see her. Another shadow beyond her pointed and turned her more clearly to him. "Do you recognize our guest, Severus?"

The corpse had tears trickling down her upside-down face. It...she opened her mouth, and where a deathly rattle of breath should emit, she instead pled with him once more..."Severus...please...please..."

He turned awayfrom the mad laughter and green flash of light this time, just because he could.

Angry, bitter, hating blue eyes flared through the mist like some sort of golem. "Ah, yes, how much did you relay to Lord Voldemort?" Severus fought not to look at the half-formed, shadowed and cruel man in front of him, the one so many thought benevolent, wise, kind.

Sadness and something more built inside him like a great wave. Was it remorse, or spite that had him yell back, "Everything—Everything I heard!"

_Everything I've heard I gave to him and to you! I've betrayed everyone and it's the only way I can live! It's the only way you let me live!_

"I have spied for you and lied for you, put myself in mortal danger for you. Everything was supposed to be to keep Lily Potter's son safe."

Dumbledore disappeared back into the air, the wind, like a tempestuous Ariel.

"_I've been watching you for a while." _

The fog went dark, dark as night and a light focused on a dais, an evil, a vile creature he wish he'd never believed, never followed. Bending to the Dark Lord's hem, he kissed it, revealing the prophecy..._"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches ... Born to those who have __thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies..."_

From behind him, a heavy hand came down on his shoulder, holding him in place in front of this poised effigy of evil. Dumbledore's voice, low and gentle, peeled into the darkness, "And what will you give me in return, Severus?"

He stared at the glittering red slits for eyes as he bowed between the two men..."Anything."

Voldemort stood, hissed, then spun as if to Apparate, the illusion spinning into a flannel-wrapped boy with round, black glasses. "If you loved Lily Evans, if you truly loved her, then your way forward is clear." At that, Dumbledore shoved Severus forward, hard, so that he fell to his hands before the boy.

Anger mounted inside of him and he pressed himself up, up, up to his full height, equal to that of the intimidating old man and turned to face him.

They stared at each other, one angry and desperate to prove himself, the other seemingly unimpressed.

"Karkaroff intends to flee if the Mark burns."

A darkness, a bitterness flit through the old man's blue eyes. "Does he? And are you tempted to join him?"

He always _expected_ the worst, didn't he! Then acted as if he'd known all along I would stand the higher ground when I did! Assuming, righteous, pompous, machinating—

Dumbledore conjured a chair and sat with as much grace as an old man in long flowing robes had practice to have. "Well, really, this makes matters much more straightforward."

He looked up at Severus with glittering blue eyes. Had he been laughing at him the entire time?

He stood taller, straighter. He must impress the importance of this information upon Albus. "The Dark Lord does not expect Draco to succeed. This is merely punishment...slow torture for Draco's parents, while they watch him fail and pay the price."

Dumbledore's eyes brightened and he steepled his hands before him. "In short, the boy has had a death sentence pronounced upon him as surely as I have." Severus waited for the final blow... "Now, I should have thought the natural successor to the job, once Draco fails, is yourself?"

A frisson of fear rippled down his spine. That. That was it. Both Voldemort and Dumbledore had planned in all eventuality to kill their most trusted adviser, regardless of his value to either cause. "That, I think, is the Dark Lord's plan."

_Even when Potter was frozen beneath the Astronomy Tower, watching us, he knew it was just another shift of power to ensure I would not survive. The boy had come after me. I was stronger..._

Shock, shame, anger, sadness, all these things ran like a river through his heart as he stared at the old man in front of him. How had he accepted this while it was happening?

How had he let this happen? Was he so defeated, so bereft of any will to live? How? How could he let them do this?

Regardless of the complete and utter servitude he'd given both masters, both men, both causes, both lives. He'd given them everything they'd ever wanted and they had both decided to cast him aside for their own petty requirements.

The only difference between them lay in the fact that Voldemort wanted to live forever, and Dumbledore was ready to die...

"Are you intending to let him kill you?"

He laughed. Laughed! "Certainly not. _You_ must kill me."

_You_ must kill me.

_Had that been how he'd killed him, fed the anger and hatred necessary for the spell? _

Kill me.

"Severus, _please_."

He remembered the spell, the determined anger,_ Avada Kedavra!_

He remembered crying out, "DON'T!...Gone...dead..."

At his hands.

How many? So many...

Albus...

Lily...

_The wrenching bastard!_

"_Always."_

With a gnashing groan, Severus came out of his nightmare, stumbling toward the bulrushes at the pond's edge as if drunk. He grasped at the tall leaves, ripping them out of their stalky bases with a squeaky sound, their unexpectedly sharp edges cutting the palm of his right hand. "GAH!" He stared at the slice as it welled blood in the darkening daylight, then wrapped it in a crushing fist around the pudgy, brown head of the offending plant, breaking it off into clumps that stuck and fell, the lighter seed pods floating off to some safer destination.

He watched them fly off, wished for a brief moment he were they, then threw the messy clump to the water with a yell.

"Severus?"

He turned at his name. Who? Oh, _her._ That other Mudblood he'd nearly soiled with his—he looked down—bleeding, murderous hands...

Merlin...

He broke into a lope across the footbridge, into the messier foliage they'd not broken down this morning and started yanking, tearing, pulling—

"Severus! Wait! What's wrong!"

Deeper! He must get deeper so she couldn't find him. She shouldn't find him. That elastic coil was wrapping so tightly inside again, it hurt, it hurt—the pressure—he fell to his knees and clutched his head, squeezed it as if more pressure could make the pain stop.

"_Stop, stop, stop—no—_"

"Severus, are you all right?"

"_NO!_" She was too close! He felt it crawling over him, like a climbing vine of electricity over every nerve, and he couldn't stop it, he couldn't warn her to get away and she wasn't stopping him! "Herm-m-"

Everything went so completely quiet.

Was he truly, finally dead? So quiet. Peaceful.

His eyes opened. Nothing above him but sky. No one there. He tried to move his head, but felt pain. Not much, but enough to stop him. Pain wasn't felt by the dead. Was it? He tried to move and found himself amongst a rubble of trees, as if a giant construction machine had played havoc in their enchanted garden. Even the folly was reduced to ruins.

His hearing came back in a rush of falling and dripping leaves, pattering down onto broken things.

How long had he been out? He looked more at the condensed ruin of the garden in shock as it registered with him:

_Dear Merlin, where was Hermione?_

He tried to speak, but it came out broken, too. He coughed, found his throat clearer, and croaked out, "Hermione?"

Nothing.

Fuck! He painfully pulled his aching body to stand and started peering into the evening for any bits of color out of place: her shirt, her jeans, her trainers, anything that didn't look like wood or leaf or rubble.

In an ever widening circle, he searched, until he came to the folly, which was now decidedly not separated from the rest of the garden by a pond. In point of fact, there was no pond. He looked a bit closer to the garden, even as he heard someone calling for them. Great Goddess, the garden was no longer the size it had been! He looked behind himself to see the house nearly upon them and a light appear in an upstairs window.

He'd have to work fast to find her in this mess before anyone else came out. They'd never let him alone with her again.

There! _No_! Not the folly! He could see bits of blue peeking through a fluted column's broken round and darted over. "Hermione? Hermione! Can you hear me? Bloody Hell." He could feel the blood leach from his face as he realized she wasn't moving nor was she making any noise. Fear gripped him and he reached for the first piece, nearly two stone heavy. He rolled it off and reached for the next. And the next.

And the next.

She wasn't moving.

He whispered to her, "Hermione, Hermione..." He pulled a fifth column section away to reveal what he though would be her torso, only to see the back of one of Weasley's conjured chairs.

Severus gasped for air and stumbled backwards down the half-step behind him, into something...he looked...a tree trunk at a strange angle.

Yelling reached his ears and just as he swung around to look for another spot to look, to hunt, to...anything...

A hand stuck up from behind a group of saplings pressed down by a piece of the cupola that had flown free of the folly. "Severus? Could you help me please?"

Just to hear her voice nearly sank him to the ground, but he pushed his tired body over to her and searched through the branches for her face. "Are you hurt?"

"Oh," her eyes were watering, "Thank God! Are you okay?"

He stared at her, shocked at her question. "What? I'm the one standing! What the bloody hell—I've been calling for you!"

"What?"

"What—" He growled his frustration, "You insufferable..." What could possibly be the right word to describe her? "Thing!"

Her eyes softened and she'd apparently decided to take pity upon him. Bugger that. He started to pull the stone off the downed trees, "Where are your feet?"

"Um...here?"

He heard a rustling and saw a few leaves part way. Good, she could feel and move her feet, that was a very good thing. He worked harder to push the stone away from her, "Uff! Can't you magic this off?"

"And risk your sensibilities?"

"Oh, now you want to protect my sensibilities!" He growled to her as he strained to pull at the masonry, "How about you protect my back and Levitate this crap off!" There, the stone was pushed over enough for her to get the saplings herself with her wand.

"I can't."

He took a few huffing breaths. "Whyever not?"

"I can't reach my wand."

"What? Why?"

Her answering growl was almost worthy of himself, "My arm's pinned, Captain Obvious!"

_Who? _Oh. He sighed through his nose and started lifting broken branches and saplings away from her, having to practically straddle her legs and lean directly over her to reach the heaviest one.

"Oh, ow! Wait, that's my hair!"

"Hold still and I wouldn't catch it."

"I don't exactly have control over that, you're shifting the bed."

Now that wasn't suggestive, no, not at all. Especially not when she was trapped underneath him like this. He looked at her a second longer than he should have, just long enough to catch her blush as she looked away.

"Just get the damned things off me."

"I have the damned things off you, just move your arm."

She growled again, meeting his eyes, "I can't, you dolt, it's stuck."

If this hadn't been his fault in the first place, he'd have left her here, pinned, for that statement. Since it was...he reached for the last branch holding her arm in place and shoved it aside.

"There, now what had you—" He saw a Muggle manila folder, slightly crumpled in her hand, and stared, transfixed. Without asking, he reached for it, snatching it out of her grip and scanning through the information inside.

He vaguely noticed her rubbing her wrist as she sat up behind him. Facing away from her as he read past his name—John Smith—past his description—a decreasing weight and volatile temper with bouts of depression—and finally found the chemist list.

NaCl. CnH2nOn.

He looked for more, flipping the single page over, trying to find something real, something substantive.

This was...this wasn't real. This couldn't be his folder.

"Salt? Sugar? Are you mad?" Severus rounded on Hermione and threw the folder at her feet. "Are you arsing around with me?"

She stood up, slowly, bringing the folder with her. "It was all I could find in the short time I had. Someone was coming and I simply grabbed it."

"The next time you wish to help me, pay attention to the insufficiency of the material you 'grab'."

She narrowed her eyes and set her jaw, "I shall gladly do so, _Professor._"

It was his turn to narrow his eyes. Insolent—he took a deep inhalation through his nose and controlled its exhale slowly before turning off towards the house. Starting to climb across the broken garden, he made it halfway across a felled trunk when Hermione pulled at his arm.

He looked down at her and remembered this happening before. "You're going to let me go this time."

"No, you're going to hurt yourself if you try and climb through that mess."

Anger welled up inside him, remembered from his nightmare, or vision, or selective memories – whatever they should be called. They clawed at him, forcing him to attempt control of an uncontrollable situation. He could feel the anger and resentment rippling through his body and knew that if she pushed too far..."I will hurt _you_. Leave me be."

Astonishingly, she didn't. She pulled his arm harder and he capitulated, climbing back down from the felled tree. She looked up at him, then down to her feet, so somber, so serious. "You won't. You wouldn't."

He stared at her, incredulous, but hiding as much of the emotion as he could. What...How could she possibly—

A masculine voice called out from the other side of the broken garden. "Snape? Hermione! Are you two all right? Was it another episode?"

"Damn, that'll be Remus." Hermione took a steadying breath and ran her hands over her hair. "We've not finished talking about this."

"Of course." Whether she knew he meant in agreement or otherwise was up to her. Sirens pierced the night along with the sound of a diesel engine roaring 'round the block.

"Remus, we're fine, but I need to get Severus out of here if civilians are involved.," She looked back at Severus, "That means Ministry." She watched him closely. Did she think he'd object?

Remus responded, "As long as you're okay, we'll be fine. I'll send you my Patronus as soon as we have things settled. Do you have somewhere to go?"

"I can think of a few places."

Could she, now? Interesting. He wondered what she had in mind.

"Fine, just let us know where you settle."

"Thanks! I will." At that, she stepped forward, grabbed Severus by the arms and started squenching her face into concentration.

"Now wait a minute, where are you taking me?"

"Do you want to be found by the Ministry or the London Fire Brigade? Which is it?"

"Neither."

"Fine, then. You're going to help me back at Hestry's."

"What!" He grappled for her arms out of desperation.

_Crack!_

With Apparating having an almost unbearable resemblance to one of his episodes, Severus was reeling when they arrived on the grounds at Tennet Hall.

"You raving lunatic!" He wheezed in discomfort, "You could have splinched me!"

She did something with her wand into the night and gave him a withering glare, surrounded once more by boxwood hedge and moonlight. "Only if you knew how to Apparate. You probably didn't even remember what splinching was until a few moments ago."

"That's not the point."

"It _is_ the point. It was my concentration that got us here, not yours. It was Side-Along Apparation, so my will was the one that controlled yours."

Her words sent chills down his spine. "You do _not_ control me."

She must have seen her mistake in words, for she carefully backtracked, "No, sir, I do not, but I would never have hurt you like that. Just as I know you would never hurt me."

"Never is a strong word, Hermione."

She backed away from the look in his eyes. He knew it just as she shrank against the hedge. "You wouldn't. Not on purpose."

"On purpose." He stalked towards her. "On purpose!" With an anger left over from his nightmare and built upon by the adrenaline after his magical explosion, he rounded on her in a flash, grabbed her by the arms and tossed her away from him onto the ground. He snarled at her prone form that stared back up so calmly at him. "Wouldn't I? I have a great capacity for violence, Hermione! I even _kill_ those closest to me!"

She went still. "You do _not_."

"I did."

"You—"

"I did! He _begged_ me to! And that's not the absolute worst of it all!" Severus reached blindly about for something, anything to throw. He found nothing, then settled for tossing his hands about him widely, "Everyone thinks I betrayed _him_ but it was _he_!" He threw his hands up high, fisting them. "HE WHO BETRAYED _ME_!"

His body decided to give out on him, then. The adrenaline rush played out and he sank down to the ground, gasping for breath. So...so very tired...gods...

Hermione took the opportunity to run up to him, her hands cold on his face. "You don't know what you're talking about, how did he betray you?"

He looked down into her tear-stained face and laughed in a halting bark. "That's right. You don't know, do you?" He took another deep breath. "You've not sorted that bit out, but from the looks Harry's been giving me, I bet _he_ has."

She bent a little to look him more fully in the face. "What? I'm not following you. Severus, just calm down and tell me."

He snatched his face out of her grasp, nearly falling backwards to the cold, spiky grass. "I will not calm down, I have every right to be angry. That righteous bastard set me up as a lamb to slaughter, the final distraction, the last pawn in the gods be-damned set!"

His heart was hammering again, like a herd of wildebeast galloping down his lungs. He threw his head back for a deeper breath.

"Think. Just think, with that not-insignificant mind of yours. What happened to me in the final battle with the Dark Lord?"

She knelt apart from him, but not so far that she looked afraid. "H-he tried to kill you."

He set his gaze back down on her. "Why."

"It-it was to gain control of the Elder Wand."

"And why did that not happen?"

He watched her eyes blink through the right answers, searching for the one he wanted. Swot. "Because Draco had already disarmed the Professor?"

"Yes, Hermione, now use that brain again. What would have happened if the boy had not done so before me? What would have happened in the end game if all had gone according to Albus' plan?"

"Y-you would have had control of the Elder Wand?"

"And?"

He watched with satisfaction as she realized the answer he sought. "Then so would have V-voldemort when he...k-killed..."

She really didn't have to finish that sentence. They'd all been there.

"And in all this mistake-laden and chance-ridden planning, filled to the brim with ruthlessness, what was our esteemed Professor's greatest and most hateful error?"

She stared in fear, somehow instinctively knowing that what Severus had to say was not what she'd always known of the august and great personage of Albus Dumbledore.

"Think about what he did to me. What did that man do to me? He took my _life_, my eternal enslavement and instead of giving me forgiveness, he gives me the kiss of _death_! Instead of freeing me from my geas, he murders me! Why! Why, Hermione! The man must have been holding a _deep_ hatred of me to hide it so well for so long! To strike such a blow at me, to make me love him as my mentor, my father, then make me kill him! Send me to my own death, knowing I would be the reason for our world's failure and that he wouldn't be there to worry about it! Great Goddess, the man even forced your beloved savior Potter to watch me kill him, ensuring another avenue of vengeance against me!"

She took a tiny knee-crawl forward and whispered, "It's not like that, Severus."

"There is no other way about it."

"There _is_."

He stared hard at her before climbing to his feet and continuing. "I've heard your rhetoric. It's got a pretty silver lining and looks lovely on a pedestal, but my interpretation fits so much better down here in the muck with us lesser mortals."

She knelt, hugging herself, giving herself comfort perhaps. "You're wrong. You're so wrong, he loved you. He never did anything without a thousand contingencies and his mind was the sharpest there ever was. He fought his entire life for the Light, from Grindelwald to Voldemort. I can't believe something so completely evil of him, Severus. I can't. If I do, then the war is lost right here and now and we all should have died."

Albus loved him? Ha! If only she'd known the meaning of her words. As for death... "You're right on that point. I should have died, but look where I am! You're exaggerating his honor—his benevolent omniscience, but look at me! _Here_ I am!"

She stood up to face him, more sure of her argument now, but how? Why? "I'm _not_ exaggerating. You _think_ on it. If we don't have that silver lining and that pedestal to look up to, what have we to live for? What do we have to justify the past ten years of my life, Harry's, Ronald's, anyone who lived and fought in this war and the one previous? They'll have survived for nothing if we believe this of him."

He leveled a dark, sickened glare at Hermione. "Even if it's the truth."

His challenge had caught her off guard, apparently. She took a little step back. "I won't deny that Dumbledore had his moments, but he never lost sight of the long term goal: defeating evil."

Severus glared at her, paced away from her. "And I was part of that defeat of evil!"

She called out from behind him. "_Are_ you evil?"

He turned to face her, surprised. "What?"

She stared at him, still holding herself, "Are. You. Evil."

"NO."

Her mouth tipped up at a corner as her chin rose a notch. "Were you?"

He turned away. "No. Misguided to the extreme, but never _Evil_. Not like that madman." Ha. Which one? Merlin, would he ever know? He ran his left hand over the rough stubble of hair across his head, then dropped that hand in frustration.

She persisted. "So what was the question again? Did Dumbledore make you pay because he thought you were Evil?"

He glanced back at her over his shoulder. "Yes."

She sighed at him. "Wasn't he a Legilimens? More powerful than yourself?"

"Perhaps."

"Severus."

He sighed back at her. "Your point?"

"He was like _God_. He could read your heart and _know_ you weren't evil."

"For the last time! I'm not _evil!_" He'd whirled on her expecting her to be back where she'd been, but she wasn't. She wasn't.

She was right in front of him. "I know that." His breath caught for many reasons as her hands slowly came up to bracket his face. "I know that." He stared at her, who was this person? He watched her raise up on tiptoes ever closer...to what...?

Her lips pressed to his, cold, soft...He didn't know what to do with his hands...

He blinked and she'd dropped down to her own diminutive height, dropped her hands away. "I—I'm sorry—"

His heart, his heart, would it ever hurt more than it did now? His chest imploded with emotions as he watched...watched...

She'd kissed him after everything she knew?

What a fool he was!

With a decision made, he stood taller than she, walled her up to the hedge beside them and pushed her against it. Snaking an arm behind her shoulders to hold her head in place with the palm of one hand, he held her jaw with the other and descended upon her mouth with every wild emotion he'd been holding back for hours, days, months, years. Their lips met and he ate at her mouth and as she slipped her arms inside his jacket, he knew she was letting him. _Letting_ him!

Letting _him._

Dear Merlin, was she an idiot? And now this one brief, incandescent moment of beauty was tarnished by the remembrance of the fact that he was no one to like, much less love.

He lessened the kiss with little nips and nuzzles and slowly disentangled himself from her. "You know I am not evil..." He took a deep breath and watched her eyes open slowly, "But I do not know what _I am_. And I can't do...this until I do."

She looked so...lovely...mussed from his attention. Was that the look Weasley had been talking about? She stared at him as if he were the very earth on which she stood.

_It was a great feeling indeed to be looked at that way. _

She looked at him, from one eye to another, her eyes glittering in the moonlight with unshed tears, and smiled. "Let's get started here, then, shall we?"

He nodded, stepped away from her and looked to the looming brick building behind them.

* * *

><p>AN: no notes this time, it's all pretty much there. If you have a question, please don't hesitate to ask. I'll still post my music list on my forum, but I'm also putting it up on my blog at denagray. wordpress. com


	12. Chapter 12

A/N1: Yiggersentia is the BOMB. She has helped me outline the rest of the story and smacked me around to get this out faster and better than before. You have roughly seven more chapters to go before I release you from this curse – um – story. This may change depending on things such as length of chapter and/or development of...well...things to come. You may be able to prognosticate on this at the end of this chapter. In fact, I encourage you to do so ;)

A/N2: Recap, since it's been for-honking-ever since I've updated: We're on Day Three of the story, Day Two of consciousness for Severus. It's late evening (not quite night) and after Severus has a rather confusing meltdown of memories, assimilating what he can remember of Lily, this trips his trigger on Dumbledore's end-of-war planning, convincing him Dumbledore set the chess board to murder Severus in the endgame. This prompts another 'episode', which breaks the expansion magic of the garden and endangers Hermione. Once Severus wakes up from his episode, finds Hermione, pulls her out from the debris and finds her with a (now unmagicked and apparently useless) folder, his emotions start building again. Remus comes out to check on them, the fire brigade is heard in the distance, Hermione panics and takes Severus back to Hestry's to find the rest of his medical folder (leaving Remus to deal with whatever happens at GP). Argument ensues, emotions run high, she kisses him to prove he's not the evil he thinks Dumbledore thinks he is. Severus is surprised, kisses back, but resolves not to pursue her yet. Yay, frustration! And now back to our irregular and unscheduled programming, with a point of view we've not seen before. Forgive me that. We needed it:

**Chapter 12**

The flashing yellow and blue lights blinked in spiraling patterns off the wet brick and asphalt pavements before Grimmauld Place as Tonks peered through the greenery of the Apparation point. With Muggles there, Number Twelve sat neglected and ignored between Number Eleven and Thirteen and it was plain to see the Muggles couldn't tell where the dust and smoke was coming from. Groups of fire brigade and building inspectors dressed in black protective suits with yellow reflective taping trooped out of Eleven and Thirteen, shaking their heads, calling for an evacuation until the source of the disturbance could be determined (or so she thought she could hear). [1]

A pop went off behind her, barely discernible over the roaring of the diesel engines of the LFB's gigantic trucks from Kentish Town and Euston. That'll be someone from the Ministry come to investigate, surely. She turned her head to look but there was another pop off in the distance. She leaned a bit out of her cover and eyed the lane—

"I imagine the show'll be over soon enough. Savage is working the Mass Obliviate as we speak. Then you can tell me your..._secret_, and we can take care of this matter inside with a nice cuppa tea. What say you, Tonks?" [2]

Her head whipped around in surprise at the gravelly and familiar voice, "_Dawlish_! Wotcher!" She beamed at the hardened man smirking at her in the dim light, grabbed him in a quick hug, then backed away with a question, "It's been ages, how's Nadine?"

He straightened the sleeves of his trench coat and smiled more deeply, "Oh? She's fine. She'll be itching to hear what I came to investigate _you_ for, I'll tell you that."

Tonks' eyes gleamed as she started the verse, "Well, _I'll_ tell you _what_ I can tell you _when_ I can tell you-"

"_-I'll tell you that!"_

They said the end of the old interrogation joke to each other in unison and laughed a bit, then turned to face the flurry of fire brigade. [3]

Dawlish spoke first, "So how long have they been here?"

"Don't know. I've only just got back, myself." She looked back to him to see his hands stuffed into his coat pockets rather sheepishly.

"It's a bit embarrassing to be beat to an investigation by a mechanized group of Muggles, even if they are London's Finest."

She chuckled, "Oh, Dawlish, don't get your nose bent. They had nosy neighbors give them a heads up. You had to find out through channels and such. You may think I've forgotten what it's like, having to sit on your fingers and wait on bureaucracy, but I've not."

He rocked back on his heels and gave her an eye. "Huh. Yes, well, you know that post is still open, should you want it."

She sighed and leaned against the iron railing, facing him part-way. "I'm a mother now. I can't do that to Remus and Teddy."

An eyebrow dropped on his face in confusion. "I never took you for the conservative set. There are plenty of working mothers out there, now. Just look at my Nadine."

Tonks twisted her mouth in annoyance. "She's a doctor at St. Mungo's."

He blinked. "Yes."

"It's different."

He blinked again. "How so?"

She looked at him, arms crossed across her chest and thought about her answer before giving it, "You're not...you're not like Remus."

Thanks to rumor and Rita Skeeter, he didn't have too far to jump to take her meaning. "Ah. Indisposed once a month, is that it?" [4]

She nodded slowly, seriously. "I love them both and they both need me. We have all we need where we're at, and Mum's happy for the first time in a long time." She looked up at Dawlish from the grass at her feet. "It feels worth it."

He tilted his head. "The sacrifice, you mean?"

She nodded, once, "Yeah."

"I hope they know that."

She looked up at a window. He followed suit. It had a light and a man's silhouette, but Dawlish wouldn't be able to see that. He'd see the people peering out their window at the fire brigade, all curiosity.

"I think Remus does." He should, after his own sacrifices were made. It only made sense that he'd make the connection, and Remus had always been a sensitive man. It was one of the most lovely things about him.

She broke her reverie and looked over to her former fellow Auror. "I know Mum does. I fought her the hardest from anybody when I enlisted, so she knows what I gave up." Of course, Mum would know. She knew all about sacrifices, didn't she? But..."But Teddy'll never know."

He latched onto her gaze rather unerringly in the dim light of the park. "Unless you tell him."

She narrowed her eyes, shifted her stance and rested her arms on the iron rails in front of her. "Well, what good'll that do?"

Dawlish sighed, if only a little. "If you keep it bottled up, it'll become an issue, whether you mean for it to, or not."

She looked over at him considerately, then nodded. Perhaps he had an experience with that and was trying to save her some trouble. It was a shame she was going to have to turn his kindness on its ear and not be cooperative on his investigation.

He spoke up with a different tone, "Ah, looks like London's Finest is clearing out. Now how about that tea?"

She smiled and led the way. At least she could repay him with that bit of kindness.

/

Severus shifted away from Hermione, into the shadows and she stood, in a little bit of shock, letting her smile slowly drop from her face. Her shaking hand raised up and wiped away the tears dripping down her cheeks as a shiver wriggled down her spine.

All this time. _All this time_ and he finally kissed her and...and it was _more_...so much more than what she'd ever expected...

_And it wasn't the right time._

She looked at him as he avoided her gaze, looking for all the world as if he hadn't been just involved in a passionate embrace. It wasn't the right time for him. That's what he'd meant, wasn't it? That he wanted her, but needed to firm out his place in the world before he could be with her?

Could she just allocate him some indeterminate amount of time, like that?

She sighed disconsolately. Hadn't she, already?

She took a shuddering breath of cold October air that was quickly smelling of another bout of rain and looked for him in the darkness against the wall. A whispering growl came to her out of the night,

"Come along, we can't wait out in the open for them to find us."

She dropped her eyebrows together in confusion as she slipped between the shrubbery hugging the wall. "What do you mean? I didn't have any problems before."

His head snapped back around to look down at her first in discernment, then in disbelief. "I take it you just strolled in as you damned well pleased, with no regard for their security system or the Statute of Secrecy?" He huffed out of his large nostrils, "Typical Bloody Gryffindor."

She frowned at his profile and huffed, "Excuse me. I simply took the most expedient means possible. Why make it harder than it should be?" Looking around to illustrate her point, she continued, "I saw no cameras and all the key locks opened to me just fine." She muttered as she looked away, "The card-key locks didn't fare so well, but that's another story."

He looked out, over the lawn, out at nothing—rather in a disbelieving attitude—and turned back to her, "No cameras!" He pointed over her shoulder, "Look," She followed his direction, "There. What do you think _that_ is?"

She narrowed her eyes back at him and snorted in annoyance, then looked more closely to where he pointed, high up on the corner of the building facing away from them. A small, black dome glinted in the moonlight and in its revealed profile, she could just barely make out through the tinted glass...

"No." A sinking feeling started in the pit of her stomach, "No, when did they get so small?"

A satisfied smirk spread across his face, "Been out of the Muggle loop, for a tic, eh?"

Well, he didn't have to be so smug about it. "Oh, shut up. I couldn't possibly have known _that_ was a camera-"

"Which is the point of them looking like that, might I add."

She threw up a hand in his direction, "Fine. You're the expert on this place, then. Show me."

His raised brow was followed by a self-satisfied snort. "I may have forgotten my own gods-forsaken name up 'til a few days ago, but I now remember many skills from my espionage days. Stay close, stay quiet, and for Merlin's sake, don't touch anything."

Hermione rolled her eyes and flipped her right hand up to her forehead in a mock salute. "Aye-aye, Cap'n."

He sneered back at her, "Tah." [5]

Now that was just enough of his snarkiness. He didn't have to act like she was such a nuisance! "Oh, would you just shut it! I was trying to help you."

His face cleared as he mocked her in return. "Ah, yes, well done. You found out they were intravenously feeding me sugar and salt. Lovely. Very informative."

"Git," she growled.

"Tart," he stated.

Her mouth must have dropped open a full inch. "What!"

He sneered again, tucked his jaw, "Oh, we don't like name-calling when it's the other way 'round, do we?" His eyes seemed to darken, if that were at all possible in the night enveloping them. He became serious, swallowed, and narrowed his eyes. "Then I suggest you stop doing it. I will point out my vocabulary is coming back to me. In spades. You'll find yourself outstripped and open-mouthed in no time." There was that eyebrow again. God, it was almost like he was back... "What? Oh, you've gotten there already? What a shame. Although I daresay I might enjoy the silence."

And there he went, just when she was nearly happy for him, he pushed the button one more time. "You miserable bastard. I'll have you know I've done nothing but work for your reinstatement for the past two bloody years when no one _else_ has-"

He interjected in a low tone, "Don't regurgitate that codswallop again. I was right here the whole time, apparently."

She kept talking right over him, "AND I took over your potions duties for Remus and a surprising number of other charity cases I'd found in your personal effects." At his surprised expression, she started naming off the potions she'd found in his journals so many months ago. "Boil cure potion, Elixir of Euphoria modification for bringing someone down off addiction to it, Draught of Peace..." She broke off when his head jerked to the side and he smacked the wall with the palm of his hand.  
>"What. What's that look for?"<p>

He stared at her, looked out, then back at her again, clenching his jaw. "What's that look for, she says." He snorted and took one step towards her. She shifted back a little to compensate. "You just take over my personal effects, my 'charity cases', as you call them, claim to try and have me reinstated – which is obviously not working, by the way – and then you don't even bother to offer my personal effects to ME when I arrive. Shouldn't a polite person—a decent person—surrender something that _personal_, over?"

Is that what was making him so shifty? So...jerky? He wanted his things back? "I—I guess-"

He leered, "You _guess—_"

She talked over him again, "I _guess_ it's been a little hectic, what with you gaining your memory back." He paced away, back to the brick wall. "It's only been three days, Severus." Good Lord, three days of even knowing he was alive! Couldn't she have a little time to come to terms with that? Not to mention the rapid rate he was recovering from whatever it was they'd subdued him with here. Speaking of which, "How about we focus on the task at hand—trying to get inside—instead of bickering outside like an old married couple."

He paced back and tossed over his shoulder, "I don't bicker."

She folded her hands in front of her, "Sure. And we're definitely not married."

He turned towards her with a focused expression, "In your brightest dreams, perhaps."

"You know nothing of my dreams." She was very proud of herself for delivering that statement to him, of all people, so calmly.

It must have had its necessary effect, for he stopped his pacing and stared at the door in front of him. His next words were distracted, at best. "Your right, I don't. I do know they've changed the locks on this door, however."

"What?"

"Did you not come this way earlier this evening?"

Her mind raced to fit the pieces together of what he was asking her, "They haven't had time, that was less than an hour ago."

He tossed his head at her in annoyance with a clicking noise of his tongue, "Did you, or did you not, come this way this evening?"

"I-" she looked around to confirm, "Yes, I did."

He nodded. "Then we have more to worry about than we previously thought." He backed up, stretched slowly down to a bush and broke off a twig long enough to reach the handle from where he was standing, then angled it over to touch it. Nothing happened, so he dropped the twig and slowly reached out with his hand- [6]

Her eyes widened and she reached out to him, "Wait."

He sighed and turned to her. "What is it?"

He used to be the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, not to mention constantly up against the inner circle of Voldemort himself, and he was just going in after a bit of a prod with a stick? "Let me do it. Let me disable it with a charm or something."

He shook his head. "That is illogical." When he saw she wasn't convinced with that stellar argument, he continued, "If this is a trap, and they know we're here, then you will retain your magic and can get us out of here. If it is not a trap, no harm done. If it is an illusion, I can disable it manually much more easily than you would be able to on a damaged lock disguised as a firm one." He smirked at his own lovely logic. "Are we clear?"

"Um, I think so." He'd still not entirely convinced her of anything but his determination to do it his own way.

He stared evenly at her, "May I do this now?"

God, did he always have to be so arrogant? "Yes, _sir_."

He flinched. Physically flinched. "Don't—Don't do that. Anymore."

"What." What had she done?

His lips curled open in front of his teeth to form a word several times in...what? Agitation? Disgust? She couldn't tell...

"'_Sir_' me. Just...don't."

She blinked with wide eyes. Dear Lord, was he going to be sick? "Right. Fine. 'Severus', then."

He raised both brows, breathed out through his nose in a shaky relief and nodded. Why was he so...erratic? Almost like a radio station jumping around. She watched him closely, but he simply gave her a steady look, then reached out for the handle.

She felt the static energy raise the tiny hairs on her skin and opened her mouth to stop him—

/

Auror Dawlish strolled around the kitchen at Grimmauld Place while his old workmate conjured up the requisite tea. He looked around for clues...anything really. He had no idea what caused the pikey campsite out back, [7] but there was something in the way that these two were smiling too much that bothered him. Reaching over to finger the lace curtain, he started the pleasantries, "So, Remus, how've you been?"

He watched their reflections in the window before him. Remus knew this and smiled at him. "Not bad, considering I don't get out much." He shifted in his seat as if his hip hurt and accepted a cup from his wife. "Tonks does most of the shopping."

Dawlish looked over his shoulder, "That sounds a bit stifling."

Remus gave him a level look over the rim of his cup, "Yes, it can be."

Silence prevailed as Tonks poured two more cups. He made his way closer to the sink basin and took a peek. Huh. Interesting. Didn't they have a house elf?[8] One, two, three...six adults? Yes, there was the child's trainer cup. There was a chance someone had used another cup, but why? Well, he'd get to that soon enough. He turned back to Remus. "So how about you tell me what was going on, since you've been here this whole time?"

There went that smiling again. "Ah, well, I was upstairs taking a nap with Teddy." And that explained where the little one was, now. He looked to Tonks for...yes, another damned smile. Remus continued, "I don't really know what happened outside. I felt the tremors and heard the noise, next I know the garden's retracted and full of debris."

Dawlish nodded. "What about anyone else? Mr. Potter? Mr. Weasley, perhaps? Where are they?"

Tonks finally spoke up and brought him his tea. About damned time. "Harry's over at Ginny's place. She's recently received a promotion in a firm of Wizarding Solicitors and since he's just now gotten back from his and Ron's last expedition, they went out to celebrate."

Interesting and unhelpful. _Tonks, you are bloody well getting on my nerves and you know it._ "And Mr. Weasley?"

Tonks blinked, smiled, "Oh, well, he was here, and then he left. Quite a bit before this mess, I'm afraid. Before I left, even."

Dawlish turned his face away and rolled his eyes. After composing his voice, he continued, "Hmm. Anyone else around?"

Remus piped back in, "Well, of course there's Hermione."

"Oh, but I think she left with Ron."

Tonks kicked him under the table when Remus replied, "Ron?"

"Oh, yes, and wasn't that strange? They're supposed to be broken up, you know. Molly's been wondering if they were going to get back together what with Fleur expecting again, George proposing to Angelina and you know they're talking to Percy now."

Remus turned his head to the side with a bewildered expression, "Ye-e-s, I knew all that. Molly was just over for dinner three weeks ago."

Tonks clenched her teeth. She'd never been very good at fast-talking when it wasn't her own arse she was covering. "So. It's interesting that Hermione left. With Ron."

Remus looked from Tonks to Dawlish. "Yes, indeed it is."

He nearly rolled his eyes at that. _Husband and wife are not agreeing on something, here._ "Ahem." Time to use what little bit of surveillance he'd been able to employ. He pointed to the sink basin, "And who's the sixth adult?"

"Eh?" Tonks walked up to the sink to see what he meant. "Oh, aren't these cups just darling? Hermione was showing off again. She made a pair of cups out of leaves, look Remus." She picked up the transfigured cups and held them up to her husband.

He quickly cottoned on and smiled. "She's always playing around with Transfiguration Spells and what-not. You remember what she's like." [9]

Dawlish didn't smile. "No. Can't say that I do, really." He took the cups from Tonks, placed them in the basin with the others and cast a silent spell with a twirl of his wand. A different color danced slightly over each rim where different saliva had been and Tonks sighed.

"I'd forgotten about that one."

"Mmm. Apparently. So, who's the sixth adult?"

As Remus opened his mouth, the growling voice of Head Auror Robards echoed out of a silvery lion Patronus flying into the room at lightning speed. [10] "Dawlish, Make haste to the standard Apparation point behind the Broken Oar in Bath, then forward to Tinnet Hall. You'll know it for the chaos and smoke. Detain all magical beings you find there and await orders, there's been a major breach in Secrecy. This is an All-Auror-Alert. Make Haste!"

/

Hermione woke in spurts, much like she had after Severus' last attack..._Oh_. Oh, no. _Not again._ She moaned a bit and opened her eyes to peek at her surroundings but was surprised to find herself at wand point. She inhaled and focused past the tip of wood, over the arm, to a woman with an eye patch standing over her with a grim expression.

"Hold still, Miss Granger. I don't know what kind of mess yer into here, but ye'v got a knock on yer noggin the size of a goose egg. I'd rather ye not move too much."

Instead of what should have been a comforting speech, Hermione felt like she was majorly inconveniencing this person by being a possibly injured charge. She slowly raised her hand to her forehead to finger the bump and pain rolled through her skull, pulling nausea up from her stomach. _No, don't do it! Don't retch, please don't retch!_ She breathed slowly and deeply through her nose and mouth in a soothing pattern with her eyes closed.

A noise, someone moving up to talk to the woman standing over her, made her wonder what happened to Severus. She slowly opened her eyes and peered around the haze of rubble that dozens of people milled about.

There was Proudfoot, Savage, Dawlish, Williamson...all of them she remembered from the War...

She blinked and looked around as much as her aching eyes would let her as she concentrated on breathing and calming the nausea fighting to climb her esophagus. There were so many others, new Aurors, some of them from her year. They rambled about, but there seemed to be a purpose to one particular group. Some kind of commotion had quite a few hanging about close to the door where...

She swallowed thickly and croaked out, "Oh, Good God, what _happened_?"

Her eyes widened as she took in the remnants of the corner of the building. It looked as if Grawp had one of his tantrums and broken the side down. The entire back wall was...just...off.

And the door where she and Severus had just been?

_Completely melted_. She whimpered, "Where is he?"

The one-eyed Auror never wavered her wand. "_He_, Miss Granger?"

Hermione's eyes snapped to the Auror above her, not too keen on the pain that caused. "You must know who I mean if you say it like that." She took a deep breath and swallowed the gathering saliva in her mouth. "Why else is everybody over there?" She pointed weakly at the gathering, just to be clear.

The Auror frowned, nearly growled, "You mean, other than _someone_," clearly and acidly meaning Hermione, "breaking almost every law set forth pertaining to humans under the Statute of Secrecy protecting the Wizarding population since 1629?"

"1692." Oh crap. She really should try and help it when she corrected people. It had hired her very few friends over the years.

"_Excuse_ me?" And Eyepatch-Auror McGee wasn't acting like she was applying for the job. [11]

Well, better to press on and prove herself than back down, now. She inhaled and sat up a little, but not before Old Eyepatch shifted and thrust her wand to make a point. Hermione made a cold face and continued, "The International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy was written and ratified in 1692, not 1629, though I can understand the transposition of numbers."

The woman sneered, "What does it matter what year it was?"

"Well it does matter, apparently, since you so kindly brought it to my attention in your own statement." Honestly! She could at least get her facts straight if she was going to be a bully about it.

The Auror shifted her stance again and scrubbed a hand over the top of her braid. "Bloody 'Ell, now I can understand why the Death Eaters had a bounty on yer head in the old days."

"What?" Now that was unnecessary-

Eyepatch cut her off with a jut of her wand, "Nevermind. Ye have a lot of explaining to do, young lady, beginning with that man over there who looks an awful lot like someone who's supposed to be dead-"

Hermione rolled her eyes and clicked her tongue, "You can say his _name_, he's not Volde-"

"AND ending with how in blue blazes ye blew up this building, and why." [12] They stared at each other after vying for dominance in who could finish their sentence first. Eyepatch continued with a flourish of her free hand, a hiss, and a scathing look, "There are Muggles right through those trees, Miss Granger. Someone smart as ye are should know how to cover her own arse."

Just because she was right didn't mean Hermione had to agree with her. She grumbled just loud enough to be heard, "Well, you haven't caught me till now, have you?"

The Auror's visible eye narrowed and her voice dropped in pitch, thickening with a Yorkshire accent, "Careful, little girl, yer talking to an Auror with access to a pensieve and I'm not afraid to use it in trial."

They stared at each other, again, waiting for the next move in their little growling match. Hermione tactfully withdrew. "Well, then I think we're at an impasse on explanations until I speak with my solicitor."

Eyepatch straightened up and snorted. "Fine by me." She nodded her head to the clearing group of people that revealed Severus on a stretcher trailed by a man in bright green robes heading towards them. Hermione swallowed again. "But _that_ one comes with us."

The man in bright green robes walked straight over to Eyepatch with Severus in tow. "No, he comes with _me_."

Hermione was about to get up and check on him when the Auror stepped between her and the mediwizard, pushing her back down to the ground with a grunt. "Excuse me! I'm over this crime scene!"

The wizard raised a bored eyebrow and held a quill and scroll out, patiently explaining a statement Hermione felt was rote for him by now, "Except where there is medical attention necessary and this person, regardless of who he may or may not be, is in serious need of mediwizardry. Sign here, please."

She peeked around the both of them and saw Severus' hand on the levitated gurney. It was unmoving and a little dirty, but otherwise, fine. She tried to move around to get a better look, but Eyepatch saw her shift and nearly stomped her hand to get in her way, then snarled at the mediwizard in denial, "I will _not_. That's Severus Snape ye have there."

Hermione huffed in irritation, both at the situation and the Auror's ridiculous attempts to keep her from Severus, "See? That wasn't so hard to say, was it?"

Eyepatch's braid nearly snapped around, the Auror turned her head so sharp to bite off a retort to Hermione, "Shut yer trap, little girl, I'm not done with ye."

She sat back and rested a hand on the ground to her side, cocking a feeble grin at the older woman. "Oh, you are. You've got nothing on me. For all you know, I'm an innocent bystander."

She got another growl in response. "Innocent my arse. Ye just happened to be on Muggle private property-"

"Davies! Quit your yapping and get over here!"

Eyepatch's whole body stiffened at the authoritative voice yelling her apparent name. Hermione poked her head around—well, Davies—to see who it was and saw Gawain Robards, one of the Aurors seen visiting the school often in her later years at Hogwarts who just happened to also be the department head, standing and fuming several meters away. While it was nice to see someone angry at Davies, she also hoped it boded well for her and Severus.

Davies must have thought it would. Either that or she was simply prejudiced against Hermione, for she glared down at her as if she'd conjured him, herself. "Fine," she growled, and did a quick nod to Robards before grabbing the scroll from the mediwizard and scratching into it with the quill.

He vanished the quill, rolled up the parchment and tucked it into his robes. "Lovely doing business with you. We should do it again sometime after the official Centaur Office opening. Ta-ta." [13]

Since there was still such a high disdain for Centaurs within the Ministry, Hermione took that as a very subtle way of saying 'never'. She hid a snort behind her hand but grew serious as the wizard directed Severus' gurney to a clear spot and activated a portkey. With a pull and a pop, they were gone, and all she'd seen of Severus was his hand.

Obviously the St. Mungo's medic wasn't in too terrible a rush, so he must be fine. They'd said nothing of him being—she shuddered—worse than treatable, so by deduction, he must be fine.

He must be.

"Right."

What? Hermione looked up to Davies who was now towering over her with a nasty smirk.

"I told you I'm not done with you yet, and I meant it."

Before she could ask or retort anything, Hermione was hit was a _Petrificus Totalus_ faster than she could open her mouth. Which, she had to admit even to herself, was rather fast. She was caught off balance, teetered a bit, and fell on her side.

_Ungh_, that was going to hurt. At least she could still see the majority of what was going on from her vantage point. Hermione felt her eyes start to dry up from not being able to blink. Fantastic.

With another sneer and the flip of her cloak, Eyepatch Davies stalked over to the reforming group of Aurors. Even with her ear drums frozen, she could make out the strongest parts of speech.

That, combined with body language and the fact that several Aurors were arguing over insensate patients from Hestry's hospital...where was Hestry, anyway?

"-magical signatures-"

"-unregistered-"

"-Muggle-"

"-Who are these people?"

Uh-oh. This aught to be good. One of the Aurors had found Hestry and was frog-marching him up to the rest of the group. What kind of crap would he feed them and would they eat it?

Robards was the first to address them. "Dawlish, what have you got there?"

Ooh, goody, they were stepping away from the crowd and a bit closer to Hermione. Her head had started pounding again from straining to listen.

Auror Dawlish shoved Hestry forward none-too-gently. "Found this one sneaking off the grounds with a rather big cap case. I checked inside and it's full of pound notes." He presented this bit of evidence to his department head with one hand, then looked at his captive, "Now why would a _Muggle_ proprietor be doing that when he should be all indignant that his property was just blown apart? Eh?"

Something about the way he said 'Muggle' clued Hermione in that he knew Hestry wasn't, but why didn't he just out and say it?

"Good question." They both turned to look at Hestry, who raised his chin in defiance.

"I will answer nothing until I can speak with my solicitor."

"Uh-huh." Robards cleared his throat and continued in a curious voice, "In accordance with the International Statute of Secrecy, I am hereby requesting you state your status as a magical being, as you have been found a magical being and unregistered within our wands as an active member of the British Wizarding Community." [14]

This amazing statement was met with a floundering mouth and bluster. "You're all barmy! I ran this hospital for your _kind_." His face contorted in disgust, "Magic. Wizards!" Hermione was shocked when Hestry actually spat at Robards' feet. "You're all sick, including that girl over there." They all turned to look at her, now.

Fantastic. They would probably move the questioning elsewhere, since they knew she was here.

Oddly enough, Robards simply shook his head. "You leave me no choice but to cast an involuntary scan upon your person to determine your magical being status. Hold still, please."

When Hestry did not, Dawlish twisted his arm behind his back. That held him. Robards ran the spell and smirked, "See, Squib? That wasn't so hard, was it?"

Hestry looked mutinous. Robards glanced around the small group of them from Dawlish to Hermione, and back to their captive. "Well, this just gets more interesting by the minute. We have a long dead man come back alive, a goody-two-shoes war heroine caught at the scene of some possible major law breaking, and a Squib heading up a Muggle nut house full of unregistered Magical folk what can't speak for themselves. What d'you have to say for yourself, Mister-uh...?"

He took a fraction of a second too long answering to be completely convincing. "Hestry. Stanley Hestry." Where was the suave and sticky swindler from three days ago?

Dawlish and Robards exchanged a look over Hestry's shoulder that said they'd be checking on that. "Right."

Robards continued. "Mister Hestry, then. What d'you say about all that?"

Poor Stan. He really was backed into a corner, wasn't he? It was starting to sink in to Hermione that these Aurors knew a bit about what he'd been up to here, or were quickly putting two and two together. If she were not petrified, she'd have been smiling.

As if he could hear the tenor of her thoughts, Hestry locked eyes with her. In a poor attempt to redirect, he tried, unsuccessfully due to Dawlish, to point at her and railed, "She stole that man you speak of out of my care two days ago and probably didn't know what to do with him." His affront was Umbridge-worthy, really, and these men weren't buying it. "I caught her trying to bring him back."

That one almost had Robards laughing. "Oh. Oh, well, then that settles the ambush you'd set on the back door, then, doesn't it?"

Hestry must have noted the dangerous amusement in Robards' tone. "Um—Pardon?" [15]

Dawlish took his turn and leaned in over the arm he'd bent behind his captive, speaking quietly, "You had a magical trap set on the entry they'd used and that's what's caused this ruckus, in so far as we can gather. Why do that?"

"I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about."

Oh, _now_ he was denying it? Lovely. The Aurors must have been thinking the same thing.

"I'm sure," drawled the holding Auror.

Robards nodded to him, "Dawlish, take him in."

Hestry started his affronted act again. "You can't do that! I'm an upstanding British citizen! I have rights! I know the law, and you can't do this!" [16]

Apparently Robards had had enough and stood a little straighter. The set of his jaw alone would have made Hermione question talking back to him, but then the Head Auror employed an icy tone that froze even her petrified ear drums. "That's where you're wrong, Mr. Hestry. You fall under Wizarding Law, now. We can do as we damned well please with you until we know who caused this mess."

"That's unfair! It was her! I had nothing to do with this, I wasn't even near—"

Dawlish must have _Silencio'd_ him.

Robards smiled, "Ah, now that's better."

He looked from Hestry to Hermione, over to the debris and back, then nodded to Dawlish. "Take him in," he cocked his head to the side, "Put him in Holding Cell Eight, I think." He looked around again at the area, at the melted and mangled door, back to Hermione, then to Hestry. "That'll be close enough to things to keep him _occupied_." An eyebrow and a smirk passed between the two Aurors and Dawlish popped away.

The last Hermione saw of Hestry was a mask of fury, indignation and fear. Served him right, the bastard. Several more pops went off as medical staff took new patients via portkey to St. Mungo's. She wanted to sigh in relief, knowing they'd all be taken care of properly, now.

Her attention was redirected as Robards knelt down, waved off the body-bind and offered her what looked like a pain reliever.

She thanked him when he helped her sit up properly, but warily accepted the pain reliever. "This doesn't have anything else in it, does it?"

He smiled. Laughed a little. "You mean, you wouldn't be able to tell?"

She took a deep breath. God, she ached in places people shouldn't. It really didn't matter at this point if there was anything else in the potion, as long as it stopped the pain. She shrugged and downed the bottle's single dose.

She shuddered as it took effect, working from her stomach, outward, in very little time. As soon as her breathing leveled out, she looked up to the Auror and smiled weakly.

He smiled back and offered her a hand up.

She took it and when she was steady on her feet, she asked, "What was that bit about keeping Hestry 'occupied'?"

He smiled again. "Oh, no need to worry about that." Lovely. Why did she feel like she was just pat on the head? "Now. You'll be summoned for questioning on this little incident in a few days, so don't go haring off anywhere, all right?"

She raised an eyebrow, perplexed, "You're not going to take me in to Holding Cell Number Nine?"

He grinned. "Hardly. I remember you from being stationed at Hogwarts in your sixth year. I don't think you'll be breaking any more laws today, or tomorrow for that matter."

She sat her hands on her hips, remembering his goody-two-shoes comment, and huffed, "Did you _all_ think I was a stuck up so-and-so?"

Robards' face twisted in amusement for a bit, "Hmm. Well, I will say we had bets on how much of a leash you had the boys on. We were surprised when you all did a runner after the attack on the wedding."

There was a perfectly legitimate reason for that! "Well we—"

He laughed and talked right over her, "And then infiltrating the _Ministry_? Talk about giving Scrimgeour apoplexy!"

"Yes, um, about that-"

He crossed his arms and cocked his head, considering her, "Perhaps I should warm up that cell after all."

Panicking, she sought to give him some kind of assurance to let her go home, "No, no, I'll not be going anywhere other than home tonight, I promise."

A slight glimmer of light passed out of the corner of her eyes and he smirked, "You won't, now."

Realizing she'd just been tricked into some form of Wizarding Oath—how was that binding without consent or a wand? Well, there'd been the flash of light, regardless—she narrowed her eyes at Robards, "Oh, that's just sneaky."

He chuckled, "I'm not an Auror for nothing, you know."

She grumbled in assent, "Apparently."

Someone called to him from another grouping. He waved to them, but smiled back at her, "Off you go, then. I've got loads of paperwork to go before this night is through."

She smiled at his long-suffering tone and looked the building over again. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry."

He looked from her, to the building and back, "Somehow I don't think you are. Not really."

She shook her head sheepishly and watched him lope over to the waiting group of Aurors. It would be a long night for him, and she got to go home. She took a final look at them all and couldn't help but think that there was something she didn't catch about what went on tonight, but really, all that mattered was getting home and trying to get in to see Severus tomorrow. Closing her tired eyes in concentration, she pictured the park across from Grimmauld Place and soon made her way into the vestibule of her friend's house.

The night was not to be over for her, yet. Tonks attacked her in the hallway with questions, "Hermione! What's happened to your head? What are you doing here? Where's Sev? What's going on? The Wireless is going crazy with rumors of him being alive and at St Mungo's!"

Remus pulled her back into the kitchen, "Easy, Dora, let the girl get an answer in edgewise."

Hermione smiled at him as they made out to sit at the long trestle table. Lord, she was so tired. She blinked and a cup of tea was shoved under her face and a cold compress into her hand.

"Um, right." Wake up, Hermione. They need to know, too. "Severus is at St Mungos." She took a sip and gingerly placed the compress on her forehead. "Hestry somehow ambushed the door we were using and as far as I can figure it had some kind of energy reaction with one of his episodes or his magic or something. It blew the back of the building off."

They both yelled in unison, "What!"

Hermione winced at the collective noise and held up a placating hand, "He's fine, I think. St Mungo's took him over from Davies who wanted to take him in for questioning. Oh, and I think I'm under accusation of breaking the International Statute of Secrecy. And Davies doesn't like me very much."

She barely heard Tonks reply, "She doesn't like many people," as she dropped her head into the hand with the compress, leaning her elbow on the table. Her mother would have killed her. No elbows on the table.

Bugger the table-elbows rule, she was tired. God, focus, Hermione.

"Still, Robards called her away and she put a body bind curse on me. That's when they took Severus away and they found the other inmates. Dawlish found Hestry and Robards questioned him. They didn't find out much more than we already know, like that he's a Squib. Apparently that changed the tenure of the entire investigation and they accused him of holding unregistered magical people against their will."

Tonks sucked in a breath, "Shite, he won't live that one down."

Hermione semi-glared for the interruption, "Yes, well, he accused me of stealing Severus and then trying to take him back, like a manky ole' pair of shoes that didn't fit. I don't think they put much belief in that one, either, but we'll see."

Tonks smiled, "Ha! They won't. Robards is smarter than that."

Hermione made a face, wondering just how much smarter Robards was.

And of course, Tonks picked up on it, "What. What is it?"

She took a slow breath, "There were quite a few undercurrents I couldn't read between the Aurors. I felt like I was in over my head and, well, I'm afraid of..." Of what, really? Not of how smart they were, that was silly. She looked at Tonks and Remus and realized for the first time since getting home that Remus was holding Teddy. She blinked. This...this was going to affect them, of course. Tonight was going to affect all of them. Severus, Hestry, her own actions...and that was it, wasn't it? "I'm afraid of how big this will get."

Before she could break into tears, she clambered off the seat and shoved to the window, overlooking the ruined garden and reflecting into the room. It was weird to see both at once, so she focused on the two people behind her. How could she have been so careless? All of this could be laid at her door. From the moment she'd found out about Severus' location, she'd just run headlong into saving him without a care for anyone else and—and now?

Tonks stood up and spoke quietly to Remus, "I'm going to floo Harry and Ginny."

He stroked his son's back and looked up to his wife, "They probably already know."

"Most likely. But I still think we should talk to Ginny." She looked over to Hermione.

Remus followed suit. "Ah. Right. It helps to have a..." He looked back to Tonks, "What is she, now, anyway?"

"Trainee under Barrister Mallowfoot."

"That soft old thing?"

"Yes, well, _she's_ not soft."

Remus nodded. "You've got a point. Go on then."

Hermione watched the reflection of them kissing gently before Tonks left the room. It was such a sweetly domestic scene and she'd just endangered that. She couldn't hold back a wibbling sound from between her tightened lips.

"Hermione?"

She couldn't talk right now! It wouldn't be fair to cry at him when it was her fault she'd lost Severus to St. Mungo's, her fault Remus had had to deal with—with—whatever earlier tonight, her fault that...Oh, God, too many things!

"Are you all right?"

No! She shook her head slightly to the left and tried to hold it all in.

"I think you've had a bit of a day. Perhaps you ought to go lie down."

She made a choking noise to hold back a sob of agreement, sort of a laugh of helplessness. He was being so kind, when it felt like so much was about to be thrown at them. All because of her selfishness.

She was horrid. Simply horrid! She turned, eyes full and spilling over with tears, "I'm sorry. I'm—I'm just so sorry."

Remus reached out to her with his free hand, but seeing him hold Teddy so sweetly was more than her guilt could take, "Hermione—"

She ran upstairs as quietly as she could and closed the door, sealing it from entry for the night. Tears would be enough companion for one so miserable as herself. [17]

–

**End Chapter**

–

A/N: All footnotes are posted below since linking to the forum was just a pain in the ass. I also load up the story to: denagray (dot) Wordpress (dot) com

Please review (concrits welcome) and thank you ever so loving much for your continued encouragement!

Notes begin here:

[1] The London Fire Brigade was so much fun to look up. Their website had borough maps and everything, including where the busiest parts of town were. I've chosen GP to be in a rather busy part of town (all according to references given by JKR, so keep your shirt on) as far as fires go, so there are over five borough response teams close enough to answer something as big as a possible building instability or implosion. Euston is closest, followed by Kentish Town, Soho, and Belsize. Islington would actually be as close as Euston, but you'd have to go the next borough over and I wasn't sure if they were like the American system where you stayed in your service area first, then went out of it only if you needed to. Youtube was wonderful for looking up and making sure what everyone's outfits and trucks look like. I looked up Euston truck A236. Not much different from American by appearance...Ah, and it was a conscious decision not to include the CBRN (Chemical Biological Radioactive And Nuclear, kind of like the American HazMat). Too much to explain. I used to hang out with a few firemen and wanted to get into all this lovely detail but...no.

[2] The Fidelius Charm. Forgive me if I've misspelled it in past chapters. I'll go back and check on this soon. Here, for my purposes, I'm assuming the OOTP is no longer a functioning entity and since in my story this is a receiving point and recovery house for those MIA from VWI & II, there are a rather many people who know it's whereabouts. BUT since Dumbledore was the secret keeper, and he's rather dead, the charm cannot technically be ended. Not to mention all those pesky neighborhood Muggles that would be all like "OMG! There's a No. 12!" This is why it's not a big deal for Dawlish to know the secret. I know there will be some that disagree.

[3] This joke means nothing, it's merely a plot device to establish familiarity. Sorry.

[4] With werewolf prejudice as it is, I imagine the Ministry would give her a hard time, asking for a week off once a month, every month. Not to mention the general harassment. I think she could handle the general harassment, but the guilt over taking a week off every month and shirking her work load would eat at her. Thus the staying at home.

[5] This is obviously something the old Severus would never have said. I say "old" Severus because we are all made of impressions of people around us as we develop. He has recently been affected by his talk with Ron and is thinking about this (the trunk of his things Minerva gave to Hermione, his death announcement, Ron and Hermione not being an item) so I'm thinking this is just the kind of thing that might slip out. I also believe Hermione's reaction is knee-jerk (as it would have been if Ron had said that to her). Both are strung out on emotions and very little sleep, right now, so yeah, OOC'ness.

[6] There are surprisingly few words that will substitute for the word "reach". This paragraph was murder for me without sounding like "Sit, Spot, Sit." :P "Reach, Severus, Reach." I ended up using "stretch" and "angle" in place of two of them and just left the other two. Blek. D:

[7] Pikeys (for those not in the know) are something like gypsies and are generally low-thought-of. It is a term loosely used, so I'm told, nowadays and I'm using it here to illustrate Dawlish's thought that something fishy and not quite trustworthy is going on at the moment. I'm also giving a slight nod to one of my favorite movies, _Snatch_.

[8] Yes, they do! And Hermione being part of the household, I imagine he has his nights off every once in a while. ;) And, of course, there's the possibility that poor old Kreacher is scared of the big explosion that just happened and is hiding in his cupboard, leaving the work for later. Two possibilities for one! Amazing!

[9] Remus is referring to the Aurors being stationed at Hogwarts in 1996 and sporadically onwards, as well as numerous other occasions, I'm sure ;) Oh, and there is no date given for George and Angelina becoming married, so why not 'now'?

[10] According to HP lexicon, Robards was made Head Auror in 1996 when Scrimgeour moved up to Minister (Kingsley becoming Minister in 1998). The current and traditional family crest for the common Robards name is a Lion Rampant, therefore my quick and easy choice for a Patronus. I know, I know, lexicon also states Harry went into the Aurory in 1998, but work with me here ;) And just for reminders, we're in October of 2000 for this story.

[11] Eyepatch Auror McGee (aka Auror Davies, aka female Auror with eyepatch) is never named in HP canon and is referred to very little (once according to HP lexicon, but I remembered more and didn't want to take the time to double check). I made up the rest. Hermione is just naming her to call her something in her head, here (E.A. McGee) but in the story, I'm calling her Davies. Make of it what you will and forgive me if it's too strange. I think of Davies as having too much testosterone poisoning in an office full of boys.

[12] You know, there is very little explained on the origins of the phrase 'blue blazes' online, but I feel comfortable enough adding it here since there are some lovely old stories of magic treasure being buried in the cracks of hell, protected by blue flames all over Europe (and America, but not many people talk about those as magical). Look up The Living Fires in Lopatari, Buzau County, Romania. They can get up to 20cm high. Yet another nod to a favorite movie: Dracula. Mina calls the blue flames to open the gates for Dracula in the movie (those who read the book are shaking their heads, 'No, Jonathan saw them in the forest on the carriage ride')

[13] This is also a way of implying he'd like for her to lose her job, since shuffling someone to the Centaur's Office is defined as a euphemism for a pink slip on HP lexicon. Or that they're about to lose their job. And you're probably getting annoyed by my indulgence with Tah's and Ta-Ta. Sorry about that, but I just love how snarky and devious they are. I shall refrain from further use, I promise. Although I fully support 'Save the Ta-Ta's'.

[14] I'm implying that Aurors have a record of registered Magical Beings in their wands, sort of like the American NICS system. They can cast a spell and it answers one of three ways: Muggle, Magical and Registered, Magical and Unregistered. Hestry's sneaking away from the scene of a crime and is found Unregistered. Oops. Ah, and in my little world, Squibs don't have to be Registered with the Ministry. The parents have the option to have them raised as Muggles, but they cannot have criminal contact with the Magical world or they are subject to its rules (as shown here).

[15] Kind of in a "Bad Cap/Bad Cop" scenario, Robards just "accused" Hestry of setting the trap. Hestry didn't immediately deny this, but his reaction let Dawlish pounce right in with the follow up "accusation" (re: declarative statement). Hestry isn't exactly coming up with excuses or trying to blame someone else, here. My take on Hestry is that he's surprised, shocked, backed into a corner and has had such a lifelong disdain for the Magical community that he's not been able to participate in (being born a Squib) that he's got the brain of a rabbit at the moment. Fight or flight. He was caught in flight, and can't fight, so he's pretty much stuck. Best keep to the evasive sentences as much as possible, right? Don't worry, we're not done with him, yet.

[16] A thousand points to the house of your choosing if you can get the Shirley Temple movie reference here!

[17] And there you have it, chapter 12. What do you think? I know, I know, WAY too many footnotes, but at least I don't put them in the context of the story (like some trolls), n'est-ce pas? Please do give me feedback on where you think everything's going now! Quite a bit of it is obvious now and there is a rather large lot that is yet to be revealed. All in good time, my loves, but I always love to hear opinions! Thank you to everyone who has been with me this trip so far (especially those that have stayed during this last long break) and Major Kudos to those who make it through my footnotes.

Music? I did have a few new pieces that I used this time 'round, but if you want the list please PM me. I won't take up more room, here. Thank you!

SUPER BIG LOVIN'S TO YIGGERSENTIA: BETALICIOUS EXTRAORDINAIRE! All mistakes are mine :) And of course: I own nothing here.


	13. Chapter 13

Disclaimer: I do not own anything here, I simply play with the characters of my own free will and make no money. Yay! That's done. Now. This chapter is actually split, but the next part won't be up until probably next week or so. I've had suggestions to the effect that my chaps are too long, so I'm going with it. Also? I had no idea we had a cap on notes. *sigh*. No more plethora of notes, then. I'll simply be a good girl and write.

And so, without further ado (or adieu, either way) I give you Chapter 13, part one:

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 131**

His head..._Merlin_, his _head_.

He felt like...

Oh God and Cerunnos, what did it _matter_ what it felt like, just make it STOP! Even his moan reverberated painfully in his skull. A shoulder...no, a hand came down on his shoulder...he tried to blink. His eyes felt like they were glued shut, but he couldn't move his hands—they weren't answering his brain. Was he paralyzed? Fear spiked his blood pressure, sending fluid pounding through his head.

"Gnh!"

"No, no, Mister Snape, you need to hold still—"

"Nine, that's nine. That is to say, nine but...but no, thirty-three. Yes, both divisible by threes. Good one, good one..."

"Ha! Hahaheeheehee, oh, he's gone to panic, he has. Ho! Better get the rest of him strapped nice n tight like his hands n feet, or – whoohoo! - it'll be a right fight you'll have from him, I promise you! Ohohoho!"

"Oh, that's not a proper sentence at all, no it's not."

Just as he was trying to make sense of what those two loonies were babbling about, a third, feminine voice piped in, nearly screeching, "Shut it, Lawrence, he's just scared and you're not helping!"

Severus couldn't even open his eyes to try and understand how many people were in the room with him. There had been four voices so far... but was that all? One of them sounded like he'd been on the wrong end of a laughing draught one too many times.

"Well, that's ten or twelve...and one, two...fifteen...thirty-two...forty-five! But then also properly forty-seven. Ah! Add two to both possibilities, nicely done, nicely done."

And whoever _that_ voice belonged to will be getting on his nerves. Quickly.

"Ohohoho, you think anyone of _them_ helped us when we came in here, eh? Hahaha! Nice sentiment, that. Hehee!"

"You don't know what he's here for."

Right then, three psychotics...the hand on his shoulder makes four, and-

"All right, you three, shove off back to your rooms, or it's limited portions tonight."

Nurse Ratchet makes five. Bloody brilliant. He was in the JT. He supposed the Longbottoms were around here, somewhere, and then Lockhart, probably? Fantastic.

"I was just trying to help!"

High-pitched brat-voice was sending knives through his brain—

"Fifteen...forty-seven...eighty-nine...Blast! You made me lose count, you ruddy conversationalists! Now start over again! Say it again!"

Did he really just stomp his foot? He sounded like a goblin, too. That might be more interesting if they'd all shut up and let him and his migraine have a bit of peace...

"Ha! Hahahah! Ya see? Wahahahah! Heeheehee!"

"Miss Jessop, help take Mister Bremer and Mister Gar back to their rooms, please, and then retire to your own for now."

"But I—"

"Did I stutter?"

"Fine."

After a flutter of cloth and shoes, the noise was finally reduced to a reasonable level. Severus could feel the veins and muscles in his body relax. Unfortunately, that allowed more pain to signal. He tried to squirm. The hand on his shoulder tightened.

"Right. So, this is the new one? Lord, but he's filthy. Couldn't you have cleaned him up a bit?"

Severus heard a sigh that was as much of an answer as ignoring the question.

"Diagnostic scans indicate need for detox from an unknown substance, rehab from severe magic strain and/or depletion, as well as MPT for full body atrophy. Looks like this fellow has a problem with interiors, as well. We had to completely restrain him just as the gurney hit the door, so as soon as you take him, I'd shunt him to the Party Cell. Sign here, please."

Severus listened to the scrabbling of a quill on parchment and the answering zap of a wand's spell as he realized he was indoors and apparently his body reacted without his prompting at the threat of being taken inside. Blood started rushing to his head again, and he realized further the key statement in the healer's diatribe: detox from unknown substance—

"Oh, that's just lovely, now, isn't it? How am I supposed to clear out something we don't know what it is? You've not a clue?"

"Eh...well...honestly, I brought him here for more than just the Party Cell."

Severus' breathing sped up and he could feel the remnants of his magic pull at the back of his brain like a fat spider plucking at her web.

"Come on, then. Spit it out."

"His toxin scan came up with something similar to what Longbottom's been publishing for treating his parents, just...different."

"Oh, well, then, that's clear—"

_Longbottom_? As in—? No. _Never—_

"—I mean, Astrid. Those pills he's been making for them, how they stay longer in a body than a potion does—react differently. But it's still got a hold of his magic—?"

The trembling, the twisting inside felt different without magic welling up like a geyser, but it filled his body with fear and anger, roiling through his veins like molten lava.

The _pills_. They had been stealing his _magic_—Hestry had _known_ all that time what he was—USED HIM—

"—right, all right, I'll call Longbottom in, just float him over there—what's he doing? Did he do this before?"

"No, no it's _worse_, he didn't spike quite this bad. Shite! You, there! Open the—"

And then he was unconscious.

/

"Hermione?"

Three more knocks. Remus was ever so polite. Of course, she knew he'd been working at her wards for a little over ten minutes, now. It wouldn't be much longer for him.

She ran her fingers over the letter again before replacing it in the trunk at the foot of her bed. One of so many. And one of the many things she needed to rectify, today. Severus had made that clear, last night, hadn't he? He didn't feel he could trust her because she'd kept his trunk from him these past few days.

And she wanted to alleviate anything blocking the path between them, didn't she? Well, today was a good start, then. She ran her hands across the latch one more time before starting to stand, and was felled backwards to the floor as Remus flung her door in.

He scanned the room for half a blink before settling his flustered and concerned gaze on her. They stared, huffing at each other, one in exertion, one in surprise. He stepped forward and gave her his hand, "Were you going to answer me at all? I've been at the door for quite a while, now."

He sounded civil, but looked so...angry...

"I'm...sorry. I've been distracted." She wiped her hands, rather uselessly, on the backs of her trousers.

Remus scanned the room, something he would never take the liberty to do under normal circumstances. His eyes hardened at the sight of the trunk beside her, his nostrils flaring ever so slightly.

"Care to tell me why this is still in your possession? He should have had it days ago."

She swallowed nervously, but tilted her chin upwards. "You know I've been using his notes to complete potions for you and others. I couldn't just hand it over without making notes of my own."

Remus' normally gentle gaze hardened uncharacteristically. "Feeble, Hermione. Rather feeble. You, of the almost eidetic memory. You, the infamous and careful notetaker. Let's try another one."

She snapped her brow together in further surprise and confusion, "What?"

"How quickly you forget that I was once your teacher _and_ have lived with you for several years. I know that you can brew many of these potions without looking at his papers, I've seen you do it. You've even expressed only referring to the Wolfsbane notes to make sure you've got the deosil turns right. Now. Explain to me why you _still_ have Professor Snape's trunk in your possession."

Her mouth floundered for an answer..."He didn't have a place to put it."

His jaw set in anger, which was a worrying sight, "I'm sure he'd have made a place if he'd only known you had it. And that's the truth of it, isn't it, Hermione? You didn't tell him."

"Well, neither did any of you!"

"He's your project, _your_ responsibility."

_How dare he lecture her_—

"—You've enforced that rule well enough that you can understand that for yourself."

She stared at this person—this father figure—that was supposed to be supportive and encouraging but was just..."Why are you being so...so..."

"So 'what'? What am I being?" His temper was clearly at an edge.

"Petty! Cruel! You're not like this!"

He took one step towards her, but pulled himself back and clenched his fists at his sides. "_You're_ not like this. You've been moaning and lolling about this room all night, feeling very sorry for yourself for God only knows what reason and Professor Snape—"

_Wait a minute!_ "You _know_ why! You know why I'm upset! _Remus_! You and Tonks were questioned last night! Severus was taken away! He's revealed as alive and _yes_! Yes, he's my responsibility. I was with him when he was found alive and they're going to blame me and you and Tonks and KINGSLEY! Oh, my GOD, they're going to drag him through the _mud_ for this and Teddy'll have to go live with _Andromeda_ and Harry'll hate me _forever_ and the Weasley's'll _never_ speak to me again and Severus, oh God, if he's even conscious yet, he'll hate me the most because I was supposed to _protect_ him from everything and I've protected him from NOTHING! And you probably think I'm—"

"Hermione."

"—but I'm not—"

"Hermione!"

"—and he's all alone—"

"_Petrificus Totalus_!"

She froze. She'd been pacing and he'd caught her mid-turn so thankfully both her feet were on the ground, but had he actually _Petrified_ her? She stared, unblinking, at him as he moved into her field of vision.

"I think...I think you've put too much stress on yourself. I'm sorry to do this to you, but I'm going to get some tea from Dora and lace it with a light calming draught. You'll drink it as soon as I release you, and we're going to have a chat about your little tendency to horde things and overreact, understand?"

All she could do was stare back at him, fuming inwardly. Honestly, she'd been _Petrified_ enough last night! The nerve of him!

She watched helplessly as he left the room. She couldn't believe him! He'd actually _Petrified_ her and went to go get a ruddy calming draught! The arsehole!

...though...

Now that her body was frozen in place and her mind had to stop and think for a bit, perhaps she had been a bit over—

But Kingsley! And Teddy! And what about Severus! Andandand _Harry_! Oh, they were all going to be so disappointed in her. Not that Teddy would really know what was going on except that his mum and dad would be taken away from him for harboring a fugitive or at _least_ someone abetting a fugitive: namely, her. Well, he wasn't exactly a fugitive, but, regardless...

This was just one great mess she'd gotten everyone into. No one would ever speak to her again, now, surely. It would be as if that fateful day back in first year had ended with the troll killing her in the bathroom... Everyone would now be like: Hermione-who? Ron and Harry would regret ever wanting to know her, now.

She'd be kicked out of the house, and then where would she go? Her parent's old house was just too creepy, standing sentinel all these years, waiting for its missing and obliviated denizens to return home and fill the voided rooms...

Ah, she wanted Mum! And it was damned painful to hiccup while _Petrified. _ Her whole body jumped and fell off balance. Just as she was teetering to the floor—

"I've got you!"

Remus reversed the spell and grabbed her gently by the arms. Hermione's gaze shifted from him to the precarious tea set floating diligently behind.

"Just a taste, and you'll be set to rights, I promise."

He led her to the edge of the bed and set her down, then levitated a partially full cup of tea in front of her.

"Go on. Just a bit to calm you, dear. Nothing more, I promise."

She stared hard at his reassuring smile, then latched her hands onto the leaf-patterned porcelain cup she'd made yesterday afternoon, dropping her gaze to the milky brew before her. It swirled in a hypnotic pattern, pulling the cup closer to her mouth and without really realizing it, she took a hefty gulp, feeling it drift down her throat and into her stomach as all good tea should.

She handed the cup back to Remus and lifted a small smile at the corner of her mouth. "I appreciate the effort, if not the methods."

"As long as it works, I don't care if I have to strap you down and pour it on your head. Now tell me, clearly and slowly, why you think so many of us are in trouble."

Hermione looked at Remus like he'd grown a second head. "You really are thick, sometimes, you know that?"

He dropped his chin and lifted a brow in a rather chiding expression, "Let's pretend, for posterity's sake, that this needs to be spelled out, shall we?"

She growled, closed her eyes, breathed in through her nostrils and out again, slowly, then cut her eyes at Remus as he sat beside her, "Severus is now exposed to the public as alive."

"Yes."

"And more directly, to the Ministry."

"Yes."

She rolled her eyes. "Minister Shacklebolt declared Severus dead shortly after the Battle of Hogwarts."

"Ah. Alright, concession to Kingsley's possible culpability. What else?"

Hermione shook her head. Did he really mean for her to 'spell it all out'? Surely, he'd thought of this himself, they'd done paperwork on people from the Continent before, "You know all the papers we draw up and file with the Ministry whenever we retrieve someone from another country?" She waited for his nod. "That's because there remains a law—something to do with the remaining Wizarding immigration laws from the French Revolutionary War—that states that in the event of the arrival of a person or persons of any magical background into Great Britain, that person has to declare themselves to the Ministry or they and their abetters face possible sentencing."

"Jail."

"Possibly."

"Us."

She sighed and relaxed. "Likely. Obviously, me. You, as our unofficial leader and therefore, also Tonks as your wife. Harry owns the house. Ron just kind of fills in wherever, they may not even bother with him since Arthur is so well respected—"

"Hermione, you're forgetting something."

"And what would _that_ be? I've been thinking about this all night."

"Kingsley. He's not going to just roll over on this. He's also not going to let us become buried for doing what our service warrants, either. The key to this is Hestry. Don't forget that."

She propped her hands back on the bed behind her. "Oh, I haven't forgotten him. He falls under ministry law, now, too. Something covering undeclared squibs who purposefully manipulate magic to suit their needs, I think. Didn't Tonks contact Ginny last night?"

"Yes, and she's already interviewing people on our behalf."

"Shouldn't she talk to me, first?"

"We tried. You weren't answering your door at seven this morning."

"Ah."

"Yes."

To cover the awkward moment, she looked behind her to the trunk, lying conspicuously all fat and black and brass in her room of linen and blue. She looked back to Remus, still sitting beside her.

"Care to help me shrink this? That way, if anything goes wrong, I can blame you."

"Cheeky brat."

She grinned at his easy forgiveness. "Just wait 'til Teddy gets older. Then we'll talk 'cheeky'."

_Thud_. Hermione leant sideways to look out the doorway for Tonks.

Remus called out to her, "Dora? Are you alright?"

"Stupid—I'm fine! Stairs jumped up and bit me again." Her bright pink hair popped into the doorway. "Ah, you're all settled then, Hermione?"

"I think so."

She walked all the way into the room and waved The Daily Prophet at them both. "Good. Then I can show you the paper, now."

Standing in curiosity, Hermione met Tonks halfway across the room and pulled the shifting printed words out of her friend's hand. She didn't even bother reading the article after the headline and confirming who authored it,

"Oh, just _wait_ 'til I get my hands on that horrid woman!"

/

Severus opened his eyes.

Well, that was an improvement, there. At least he could achieve that. Problem was, what in Hades was he looking at? He blinked a few times and reached his hand up to rub his face, glad to be rid of the pounding headache that had affected him before.

Then he noticed he could move his hands. And feet. He wasn't restrained and was laying on a small bed in a rather...strange room.

Was it a room? He couldn't really tell, from the various colors. As he scanned the room and his focus changed, so did every flat surface of the walls, floor, and ceiling. There didn't seem to be a window, but this didn't really feel so bad as what had changed about the "room" was the introduction of cloudy sky above his head. It reminded him of the Great Hall at Hogwarts...?

What?

Hogwarts.

He remembered—so much more than before.

Why?

He sat up and admired the changing colors of the walls and floor, turning the cloudy sky above somewhat psychedelic as his mind filtered through myriad memories. Varying shades of blues and greens pulsated across the floor as small bursts of black and red spangled with gold popped along the wall at unexplained intervals. He watched, hypnotised, as the colors eventually calmed to mostly cerulean blue. As the pulsing colors seemed to keep time with his breathing, an idea crossed his mind that perhaps the colors were keyed to him. This idea was nearly confirmed by the arrival of a silver sparkle arcing across the wall and disappearing.

Severus peered to where his feet met the floor in curiosity and watched undulations of cerulean and ultramarine ripple outward in ever-growing bands. Where were his shoes? He looked around the room and saw nothing but the bed, a chair, a small table and himself. A swirl of darkness ate at the blue walls at the unwelcome reminder of his time at the Muggle institution.

Well. This certainly wasn't Muggle, was it. Certainly not. He looked to the floor and his feet again.

Oddly enough, the floor felt cool, smooth...and somehow interacting with his magic. He could feel the soft tendrils of something playing through his feet, reaching upwards for his magic like tiny octopii.

He carefully lifted his foot and watched to see if something were connecting between his skin and the floor...a small static arc jumped and popped, but left after a half-inch. He winced a bit, but kept his eyes on the swirling blues. They were still in the shape of his foot, but less-so, as if he had left an impression on the floor's energy field—or whatever this was.

A sizzle of energy broke contact behind him as the now-realized door opened from a brightening crack in the swirling wall. The unknown brought green and black smoking along the walls, eating at the shades of blue like cephalopodian ink. Severus quickly stood, backed himself into the nearest corner, behind and away from the door. He scanned the ever-darkening room for some sort of weapon—

"—he's likely to still be aslee—ah bugger me. Hermione?—"

Hermione! He stepped forward, reaching to the closing doorway.

No! Wait! There was a mumble of sound from the other side, so he crept closer to try and understand it. He could hear her sibilants as they ended a word, followed by the man's speech more clearly—

"—perhaps we should come back another time."

He pressed his ear to the crack, wanting to hear her more, "No, Neville, I want to see him, now. Why are you blocking the door?"

Severus let his head up an inch from the panel and stared at it. Someone was blocking the door? There was no handle, no seal, nothing to pry on—he ran his hands along the seams—gods, help him, he was trapped!

He could still hear them, "Let me in there, I'll be fine."

Why—what was the other person doing? Some kind of clicking-beeping noise rose to his ears—

"No, not right now, the room says he's starting a panic and the last time he did that here, we had to shut down the entire wing to keep the reporters out. You know how Rita is."

All he could do was stare at the blazing crack that had the slightest, so-slightly-widening view of his Hermione...she growled a sour face and shook a paper at the tall, black-haired man with his back to Severus. "I do, very well, thank you."

Hermione. His anima reached out to her, blindly, aching for her. She was there for him, coming for him, surely to get him out of this place...this...gods, was this—he looked around—

"You don't understand, _I_ will be fine. He won't hurt me."

Of course not! Not her! Maybe if he hit the door, he could pound his agreement. If he could only see her fond face—he smacked the panel outlined in light with the flat of his palm. It repelled his hand and stung like fire, a bright sun dimming where his hand had been and small bullet-bird shapes darted off in every direction...

The imagery startled him enough to where he calculated a fisted hit on the surface again, regardless of the pain it would cause. He heard an answering 'Oof!' outside, as the man must have been leaning on the door panel, but that was beside the point.

What was brilliant, amazing, absolutely dumbfounding was the imagery produced by his action.

He held his stinging hand as little paper cut out fairies burst in a radiant, iridescent explosion from the point of impact and flew along the walls, laughing raucously.

He stared, shocked. Those were from his mind. The birds, the fairies, they lived in his mind and no where else, he knew this.

He knew this and felt fear.

Where was this place? Was he even awake? Could all this be in his mind? How far would his mind go to protect himself? Admittedly, it had been rather far in the past, but this? Would he be stuck like this...forever?

Yellow ochre slunk up in a two-dimensional fog along the floor as the fairies dissipated with a low pinging noise at the door.

It opened abruptly for—Longbottom?—and Hermione to stand in surprise at Severus Snape, standing in rigid, shuttered fear.

"Just tell me," he swallowed, choking out the words from behind the lump in his throat to the young people before him, "Am I conscious? Are you real?"

/

Hermione took a tentative step into the room, her heart racketing in her chest nervously. Had no one talked to him? Explained to him where he was? It had been almost fourteen hours since she'd seen him last. She looked behind her to Neville for some kind of explanation or encouragement.

He must have understood her worry, for he responded to her unspoken request in a quiet tone, "He'd have been unconscious or asleep until very recently. I haven't had a chance to go over his chart, yet, I'm just doing you a favor getting you in here. If you think you can handle him, then go on. I'll be right here."

She nodded very slightly as he stepped out and pulled the door to, smiled even smaller, and turned back to Severus. Proud, terrified, stoic Severus. It broke her heart to see him like this, so much so that she dropped all pretenses as soon as the door closed behind her and ran to engulf him in a sobbing embrace.

"I'm so glad to see you."

She hoped he could make out what she said amidst her blubbering into his jacket. They still hadn't removed his old clothes from Hestry's—well, maybe his shoes. Was that by his choice or theirs? She paused mid-sniffle, realizing he wasn't reacting to her—at all.

"Severus?"

He stared down at her, hardened obsidian eyes reflecting the dark gray, sickly ochre and brilliant gold swirling about them like some kind of reversed lightning. "Am I to understand that I am still among the living?"

His voice was deadened, void of emotion, but the sky above him...

Storm clouds, full and green, skidded above his head as she looked up to discern his displeasure. She looked from one eye to another in confusion, "Of course, you are. I'd never—you're in St. Mungo's." She backed her head up to see him more fully, "Didn't they admit you? Didn't they explain anything to you?"

Despite his dour expression and despite the darkening colors around them, she stayed where she was. She tightened her finger-hold on his jacket at his back and waited for...something...Would he explode? Would he be angry? What did the ambush at Hestry's do to him?

For that matter, what was this room doing to him? Neville called it their 'Party Cell', a place where they put people with uncontrollable magic that doubled as a place to learn how to control it. If Severus exploded in here, everyone would be safe except for her. Unless the room had some sort of wicking or levelling commodity to it?

Focus, Hermione. Severus was just standing there, in her arms, looking down at her as the room sank into velvety, somber darkness.

Why? What did the colors mean? Did he hate her now?

Fear jumped through her mind and her hands convulsed in their hold on his jacket. A ripple of sickly yellow blazed around the room, cutting through midnight blue as she took a shuddering breath and voiced her fear, "A-are you alright? Please. Tell me you're not angry with me?"

Something changed as she watched him. About the time the flare of her fear's arc died, his eyes changed from hard...to deep. His face didn't move, he didn't move in any way that she could tell, but his eyes became twin oubliettes instead of shards of granite and, Lord help her, it was _interesting_. Exciting. What did it mean? Her skin felt different, with a different awareness of holding him and she swallowed to wet her dry mouth.

His eyes moved to watch her do that and the room shifted from midnight to violet with a twilight sky.

His large nostrils flared as he inhaled, still watching her, still not touching her, "No. They have not. I...am not."

She fought the urge to express her consternation on her face and kept her expression open, wondering what he was thinking. It grew difficult to hold her face so still, so she dropped her gaze to his throat. As soon as she did, he shifted out of her embrace and sat down rather abruptly in the only chair in the room, leaving her standing, looking after him in confusion.

"Are you alright?"

He bit his thin lips together, jutted his chin, crossed his legs loosely and replied with a non-sequitur, "You've brought the paper." His eyes never left hers, as if in challenge, but she did break his gaze to look back to the floor at the entrance where the paper had landed as she'd rushed him.

Well, if he wanted to read the paper, then so be it. She smiled a little self-deprecating smile, shook her head and went to retrieve it. As she reached the door, she leaned over to pick up the folded paper, but braced her hand on the wall to hold her balance.

A warm tingle shot up her palm, catching her attention and bringing her gaze up from where she'd bent over, away from Severus, up to her hand on the wall.

Violet-rose-red bloomed like a bloodstain outwards from her hand, growing and growing...she thought vaguely how her standing like this might be a bit provocative, with her arse in the air, and bright fuschia pumped along the wall like a starburst, pushing the dark bloom before it.

The color...it was showing him she was desirous of him, wasn't it? Her breathing caught in her chest and she felt her body tighten as she watched the colors shift in shades of arousal.

Would he—

Warmth engulfed her from behind, nearly knocking her over. His hand covered hers on the wall as his body pushed against hers, matching her shape to his, snaking his free arm around her waist and pulling her upwards.

She cried out in surprise, bracing her other hand on the wall and the colors exploded in crimson and violet. His mouth searched for her neck beneath her hair. She knew not really how, but she accomodated him and soon he had her pressed against the wall, him at her back and suckling her throat at the join to her collar.

Oh, God, his _tongue_...

Like an animal, he ground up into her backside, sliding his hands up and down her torso until finally resting at her hips for a hard pull/push of his erection into her arse.

Her breasts rubbed against the wall as she arched back against him and they both gasped. One of her hands grabbed for his shortened hair and the other reached for his hips, wanting desperately to pull him closer. Her elbow hit the wall in a burst of orange-red.

God, what would this feel like from the front, or in bed?

She turned her head and nuzzled his face, searching for a kiss on the mouth. He obliged her greatly, with a demanding press of his open lips to hers, sucking at her mouth as he could reach it. His hands roved up from her hips to her breasts, under her jumper and catching on her vest. The feeling of _his_ hands on her, kneading her breasts through the cloth of her brassier, vest and some of her jumper, made her itchy for more and she groaned, sliding her hands to his waistband to let her fingers get a taste of his skin.

It was deliciously warm and silken...

The door opened a crack to her left, away from her, "Hermione?" Neville almost squeaked. Right, the monitor beside the door would be listing exactly what emotions were going on in here. Severus disappeared from behind her and she pulled her jumper down over her vest, straightening things as much as she could without a mirror.

"Yes, Neville?" She turned and stepped to the opening, hearing Severus' chair creak behind her and the paper rustle. Well, there went that.

"Right, um, just checking. I'll...just..."

He looked almost green. If she wasn't so flustered, herself, she'd laugh. "Got it. We're just going over the news."

"Um. Yeah." After a falter where she was sure he was going to say something else, he nodded again and closed the door.

She slumped back against it with her eyes closed, willing her heart to calm.

What the hell had that been? Hadn't he wanted to wait? She blinked and opened her eyes to a room of layer cake reds and grays.

There he was, sitting in his chair, hands perfectly still holding the pages in front of his face as if nothing had ever gone awry.

If he had that much control over his physical reaction, what did that mean? Was he getting better? Was he remembering more of himself? What did _that_ just mean?

She inhaled a steadying breath and stalked over to the bed for a seat and waited. And Hermione had never been very good at waiting.


	14. Chapter 14

Don't kill me. Apparently I took a leaf out of Jane Eyre's book and made a REALLY long week. Unfortunately, I'm making up for it with a super-long chapter. Break out the utensils, my lovelies, you've got lots to chew in this one ;)

and lots of...knocking...ahem...

Beta'd in parts by ManfromDenmark and Yiggersentia, you lovely ducks, you. Extra special thanks to Persevero for correcting me on the use of the term 'nutters'. That has been changed to alleviate improper noun-usage. 3 All Mistakes are Mine, however, I do not own it. No money is made here. I be poor.

**Chapter 13/2**

Excerpts from _The Daily Prophet_

**Severus Snape: Alive!**

**Hero or Horror? You Decide!**

_(press wand to your answer in the box below to reveal current poll numbers)_

_-Circumstances under which he was found, pg.1_

_-Abstract on his VWI conviction and VWII posthumous trial, pg.6_

_-Relative Timeline of Accused Incidents since Supposed Death, see chart below_

**Godric's Golden Gorgon: Hermione Granger!**

_-Obsessive Maneater or Determined Criminal? Hermione the Heartbreaker Strikes Again! pg.2_

_-Harry Potter in Shock at Revelation of Granger's Duplicity. pg.1_

_-Wizengamot to be convened to review charges against former War Veterans, pg.6_

**Werewolf & Wife Without Woe?**

_The Lupins and their remorseless role reintegrating Death Eaters to the British Wizarding World pg.3_

_-What exactly does the Potter Foundation do under the current Lupin regime?_

_-Amos Diggory speaks out on Werewolves and their precarious status under Shacklebolt's Ministry._

_Should they be treated as humans or magical creatures?, pg.7_

* * *

><p>Ginny shook her head at the printed page in her hands. This was going to be messy, and it wasn't even fully filed, yet. After this, she'd better pop down to the clerk and register herself as representation for everyone so they wouldn't bombard them all with interrogations at the same time. It would be best to try and keep these things as streamlined as possible. Reading between the Ministry-approved headlines, she could see loads of potential for a Wizengamot interrogation to turn into a civil suit, People v. Her Friends.<p>

Merlin, what were they thinking, keeping Snape a secret like that?

She snorted. Then again, according to Remus, it wasn't exactly like they'd had time to make heads or tails out of anything.

Stuffing her newspaper back into her satchel, she pushed back the thought that this turn of events will likely mean an indeterminate amount of time around Harry. They'd nearly made a breakthrough in their relationship when he'd come back from his last recovery mission, right before Ron forced his way into the situation.

Ugh. Brothers. That was one thing she had way too many of.

Now if she could only get Harry alone again, perhaps they could start back that conversation where he was about to ask her out. Again.

Lord, how many chances had she given him, now? She'd lost count after—

"Miss Weasley."

Ah. That would be her cue to stop woolgathering. Mooning over her and Harry's variable relationship wasn't going to get her in to see the Squib held for questioning after the Bath incident. Not that the papers had anything to say about that.

She stood and smiled, small and quick, nodding to Auror Dawlish as he let her through the wood and glass door to their offices. "You said he's in here?"

"That's right."

"Why's he not on Five? This is listed as an international issue."

Dawlish smirked. "Now, Miss Weasley, you've been known to dance circles around Mallowfoot. You tell _me_ why."

_That was why I asked you the question, idiot._ Ginny narrowed her blue eyes at the graying Auror, but relaxed her face quickly. That was rather rude to insult a respected member of the Wizarding Solicitor's Association and her superior like that, especially right off the queue. What kind of game was he playing at? Was he thinking to try and up her ego? Huh. Weird. Perhaps. Perhaps not.

Regardless, they had formally charged this Hestry fellow this morning at eight-thirty with a list long enough to make the best scribe's hand cramp in the making, so what was with the power play?

The were on Two, the MLE. If Percy's old office let this man go to another department, then the Aurors had a greater claim on him. Without speaking to Hermione, all she really knew for fact was that Professor Snape was alive, along with quite a few other individuals that had no filed claim to be in this country, and had been treated at a facility ran by the fellow through door number Eight. Tonks had floo'd her late last night with a request that she look into things, but with the paperwork filed this morning, it looked like she'd be pushing Maury to take this one over anyway. She really didn't like anyone to malign him, but he honestly was a pushover.

And all this right when she thought she'd have at least a week's break before diving headfirst in her new programme. As it was, she could foresee about seven interrogations, and at least two civil suits in the making before her very eyes.

Merlin, things never did come by halves, did they? She rolled her eyes at the Auror and nodded for him to lead her down the hall. They stopped in front of a poster...more like a shrine to the fallen heroes of the Voldemortian Wars. Charmed illustrations of Mad-Eye and Snape stood in the center, back to back, barely sneering at each other over their shoulders before casting hexes at something out of picture. "Constant Vigilance" smoked in neon yellow at the top, just below Dumbledore's eyes. Frankly, the poster gave her the creeps, but there wasn't a wizarding child alive that didn't have some clip or copy of it.

Someone cleared their throat behind her and she swung around to take in the situation. Dawlish smirked as he held the door open wide for her to see the apparent Hestry sitting at a table, staring dully at her...

No...not at her...

At the poster.

She could see now as she moved into the room that he had a perfect view of the poster through the barred window if he sat just so. And something about Dawlish's smirk told her that he wasn't allowed to move from that seat. Fantastic. She suppressed the urge to roll her eyes. Boys.

She set her leather case on the cold metal table top and sat in the wooden chair across from the defendant, addressing him carefully and respectfully, "Mister Hestry, I presume?"

The man drug his sleep-deprived eyes from the doorway that Dawlish closed behind them all and slid them to finally settle on Ginny. He did not answer.

"I'll take that as a 'yes', then, shall I?"

A slight nod. Well, at least he wasn't rendered a complete vegetable. What had they done to him? Gods, did he have representation, yet? The man had been functioning as a Muggle until yesterday and surely he couldn't use his current solicitor, here. Hmm.

Here's where the old morality slips in. Should she try to question him before he has anyone around or try to gain his trust by ensuring he had someone, then make sure that particular someone is...useful? Maury Mallowfoot wouldn't even have walked in the door without the other legal counsel present. Ginny was not so conscientious.

The question remained.

She thought a bit longer, then remembered Terry was apprenticing law under his father in his final year under Dibley, Boot and Wharton. There would be no love lost with the Snape issue, but he'd be fair...and...well, he'd been a fairly good looker last she'd checked. Might not be bad for a bit of a pushing point with Harry if she were to been seen with a successful, good-looking wizard their age.

Not that she would ever do anything to jeopardize the legality of a case. Hypotheticals only, obviously.

She sighed, internally, and looked to the haggard man before her. "Sir, I'm assuming your counsel hasn't shown because they are Muggle. Have you, therefore, been assigned Wizarding legal representation?"

He stared at her as if she'd grown a second head. Apparently not. She ignored the movement from the Auror at the door, some slight shift in his stance that could signal affront or just discomfort. She did address Auror Dawlish, however, "Would you please contact Admin and have them send over the next available representation from D,B and W?"

There was some risk in making her request that way, but wording was sometimes everything. It was risky enough to request a specific firm. Dawlish glared at her a bit, but when she tilted her head into a smile, he nodded and sent a patronus ghosting through the barred window of the door. The detainee went rigid beside her, inhaling sharply. When she looked to him, he sat with his hands pressed against his eyes as if he were experiencing a headache.

She looked at him with sympathy, "Headache?"

"Lord, yes. There's something like a high-pitched noise whenever you people do your magic that just...hurts. Drives me insane."

"Ooh. Sounds like an aura-migraine. Mum gets those sometimes. I can help with that, if you want."

He peeked out from behind his fingers warily, "How?"

She held up her wand. He stared at it for about thirty seconds, then out the small window and Ginny assumed to the poster on the wall outside. That was doing exactly what the Aurors wanted it to do, impressing upon Hestry the weight of exactly who he'd been treating and possibly how much retribution they'd exact for it. Perhaps it was enough for him to start being cooperative.

He rested his elbows on the table and rubbed his eyes again, raking his fingers up to his hairline to try and press some of the pounding blood out of his scalp, then tentatively nodded. She smiled, performed the spell quickly and tilted her head to him, "Any better?"

He'd blinked hard through the application of magic and sat, a little bit stunned. She waited for his reaction and was a little disappointed when all she got was a tiny nod as he stared at his bound hands.

Well, it was a start, at least.

They sat awkwardly for some minutes in silence before Ginny had another idea and conjured a pitcher of water and two glasses, purposefully leaving Dawlish out of it. Hestry nearly gagged at the sight and leaned as far back in his chair as possible.

She blinked and slowly reached for one tumbler and the pitcher, carefully pouring the first glass, then the second. She set the second glass down on the table closer to his reach and the pitcher was vanished with a flick of her wand.

Ginny took a sip of her water, the first glass poured, with a steady gaze on Hestry. When she drank a healthy gulp and set the water back down on the table, and only after several moments of a soft smile of understanding at his apparent need to wait her out, he finally reached for his tumbler with both hands and drank down the entire contents with one greedy gulp.

He set the glass down rather hard on the table and stared at her, obviously wanting and not wanting to thank her. She smiled again and vanished the glasses before he got any ideas. His hands vibrated away from the now empty space the glass had occupied and he slowly sat back in his wooden chair, watching her in confusion.

There was a small whirling-pop noise outside that sounded like someone using a portkey. Must be Terry.

Dawlish double checked and let him in.

She stood to greet him with grace, ignoring the frozen Muggle beside her for the moment. "Terry! I'm so glad to see you! Don't tell me your Dad lets you work alone, now?"

"Ha ha, very cute. As if you didn't know, this will be my last case before clearing my apprenticeship."

"I thought I'd heard you were up for that."

"Seriously. I need to speak with my now-client, so shut it for a sec, will you?"

"Would I interrupt you?"

"Wouldn't you?"

She smirked at him and walked over to lean against the wall with Dawlish as Terry set up a silencing spell around him and his client for them to become acquainted.

"Didn't you two go to school together?"

Ginny looked up at the man beside her, wondering why he cared. "He graduated a year ahead of me, why?"

He snorted and sneered. "Typical Ministry. If I didn't know your reputation as well as I do, I'd say they set up a few war heroes to lose an open and shut case where a Squib clearly ruined a man's life, simply by sending the most inexperienced and inappropriate pair of attorneys they could find."

By the end of his statement, Ginny's face was flaming hot. "First off, Auror Dawlish, if you have a problem with someone assigned to this case, you take it up with your head of department. Second, you keep your opinions in your head, not out in the open where they can influence a criminal investigation. Third, you've been an Auror nearly as long as I've been alive and you should know better than to make snap judgments on something you don't have all the facts on. That's why we're here, to gather information. Obviously, you've gotten enough against him to formally charge him but until he's proven guilty, we have to assume we don't know everything there is to know. Am I clear, Auror Dawlish?"

His face was like granite, hard and ugly. "I get it, Weasley. Just you remember, I _have_ been doing this almost as long as you've been alive. What this man's done, what we've already gotten evidence of, is enough to tell me he's stolen years away from one of ours. Not only one of ours, but THE one, the one that had already lost so much time, according to your precious Potter—"

"He's not my—"

"and regardless of what your case record is or what procedure is, I know bad when I see it. I don't care what the circumstances were, he knows he did it and that's what really matters."

Now she wished she'd been on the defense, just to be able to prove Dawlish wrong. As it was, she had to prove him right or some of her best friends and mentors would be in deep shit regardless of sides. There had to be some kind of angle that could rub this in his face.

She stared down Dawlish mulishly. "We'll see."

He shook his head disbelievingly, crossing his arms over his chest to end the conversation and she looked over to Terry and Hestry.

Honestly? The man didn't look like someone who could have captured and subdued the great Severus Snape, much less force him to take some kind of potion or medication that stripped his magic. Initial reports from St. Mungos stated a severe magical and physical atrophy accompanied by traces of an unidentified drug. They had kept Snape and others—ten others—strapped down and stripped of their magic.

A Squib couldn't do that without help and even if Hestry was a Wizard, he looked so...weak.

That was it: there had to be at least one more person, if not a team of others. Who supplied the medications they used? Who supported them financially? How did they get the land they were on if it wasn't listed with the Ministry as magical real estate and had no Muggle Proximity Permit?

With a wave of his wand, Terry canceled the silencing spell around him and his client, then stood and arranged himself on the same side of the table. They both looked to Ginny expectantly.

She smiled and flicked her wand to "record" their conversation as she sat down to the table across from them.

"Today is October Sixteenth, Two-Thousand, at half-ten. Good morning, my name is Ginevra Weasley, of Mallowfoot and Meeks. Council representing the defendant is Terrence Boot of Dibley, Boot and Wharton. Depositor is listed as Mister Stanley Hestry, recently of Tennet Hall of Bath, is that correct, Mister Hestry?"

He nodded. Idiot. It nearly spoiled her fabricated, pleasant tone. "Mister Hestry, I will have to ask you to please verbalize all your responses clearly for the recording. Now, you are Mister Stanley Hestry, recently of Tennet Hall of Bath?

"Yes."

"Thank you. I'm going to ask you a few questions that will clarify a few points before we begin, is that all right with you?"

"Fine."

"Have you ever had your deposition taken before?"

"No."

She smiled to try and warm him up, "Good for you, now, as you are a Squib and used to operating as a non-wizarding British citizen, I cannot put you under wand-oath, but can you attest that everything you say in this deposition will be the complete truth to the best of your abilities?"

"Don't you people have some sort of impartial court clerk for this?"

"I'm sorry, sir, but your case is a special one. Wand-oaths are unbreakable and we rely on them heavily in our judicial system. Special considerations must be made for the handicapped, but there is no court clerk required to be here today."

He looked shocked and angry at her description of him as handicapped, but it couldn't be helped. She bit back a smile and asked again, "Can you attest that everything you say in this deposition will be the complete truth to the best of your abilities?"

"...yes."

"Thank you, Mister Hestry. Do you understand that means your answers have the same force and effect as if we were in a courtroom with a judge and a jury?"

"Um..." He looked to Terry, who looked on, impassively. Terry had done this more than she had and knew to keep his face. Hestry eventually answered, "I suppose so."

"I require a yes or no answer to that question, sir. Do you understand that means your answers have the same force and effect as if we were in a courtroom with a judge and jury, Yes or No?"

"Yes."

Ah, this question might send him off. She glanced at Terry as a warning. He looked to Hestry, "Are you taking any medications or suffering from any illness that will prevent you from understanding my questions or answering them fully?"

"I most certainly am not."

Ginny sat back in her chair, slowly. That was a full sentence! They were making progress. "If you don't understand one of my questions, will you let me know?"

"Yes." Oh, he bit that one out.

"And if you need a break, let me know that as well, okay?"

"Right."

"Good. I think we're ready to begin. The usual stipulations, Terry?"

"I think that will work for today. If it's all right with you, I'd like to begin."

"Fine. Proceed."

Terry slid her a look she wasn't quite clear on. It either spoke of her getting on his nerves or he was about to lay into Hestry on something. Huh.

She broke out a quill and parchment from her case as he started his line of questioning.

"According to our previous interview, Mister Hestry, you stated you are a medical doctor in psychology, is that correct?"

"Yes."

"This is in a non-wizarding capacity?"

"Hold that answer, Mister Hestry. Mister Boot, could you please be more specific than the term 'non-wizarding'?"

"Noted, Miss Weasley. Strike that question. Let's start again, shall we, Mister Hestry?"

"Um...All right."

"Have you ever used or performed magic, magical treatments, magical devices or magical implements of any kind upon a person in the history of your medical tenure?"

"Um..."

His eyes kept going down to the table as if he were trying to find a way through this statement. Ginny thought a little careful direction was needed, so she kicked Terry under the table. He responded with a glare and, "Mister Hestry, I'd like to remind you your statements are to be completely true."

"I...I think I want the question in smaller bits."

Her eyebrows shot up at that and her eyes locked with Terry's. This man had used magic in some capacity, but how?

"That's perfectly all right, Mister Hestry. Have you ever performed magic?"

"No."

"Have you ever used or performed magical treatments on a patient?"

"No."

"Have you ever used magical devices or implements on a patient?"

This was where he started to look a little more gray around the eyes. He opened his mouth a little, "C-could you define those, please?"

Ginny waited for Terry to reply. He sat back in his chair and thought about what he was going to say, then leaned forward, "A magical device or implement would be something made by or containing magic or a magical ingredient. Something you can't get outside this community. Does that clarification suffice?"

"I think so, yes."

"Okay. So, Mister Hestry, have you ever used magical devices or implements on a patient?"

Hestry looked from Terry to Ginny, to Dawlish scowling in the corner, then out to the poster on the wall outside the cell. "Yes."

Terry inhaled and Ginny didn't blame him. His job just got harder.

"Did you use these devices or implements of your own free will?"

Hestry's eyes locked onto Boots like a lifeline. "NO."

Ginny ground her back teeth. That was deliberately leading his client, the bastard. She wrote down the word _impeachment_ and underlined it twice, referring to this part of the recording, then shot Terry another glare. He ignored her and continued, "Did someone coerce you?"

"Yes."

Great job of asking open ended questions, Terry. She withheld from rolling her eyes, just barely.

"Do you know the identities of the person or persons that coerced you into performing this act?"

"Yes."

Oh, Merlin, that's it. "Mister Boot, I would like to object to what seems to be a leading series of questions with no actual beneficial end."

He narrowed his eyes at her and tapped his quill on his own parchment, spelled so she couldn't read what it said across such close quarters. "Mister Hestry, please state for the record the identities of those persons."

"Priscilla Sweep, head of the pharmaceutical research division at Sweep Industries, United States."

"Was this the only person involved?"

"There was another, but she was local money and didn't want to be known, so I never knew her name."

"Did you ever meet with this other, local woman?"

"Once. Not exactly a meeting, mind you, more of a nod down her nose as she toured the facility."

Ginny got a shiver up her neck. He couldn't mean...

"Can you describe her, then?"

"Blonde. Cold, blue eyes. Looks down her nose like you've stepped in something."

"And you say she was financially involved with your research and coerced you into using these magical devices on your patients?"

"Oh, yes. She even brought me one of them."

"One of what?"

"One of the patients."

"Who? Who did she bring?"

He looked once again outside the cell, then pointed his bound hands, index finger foremost. "Him. The one with the big nose all in black."

After Ginny and Terry recovered from their shock at him identifying so easily the culprits to their case, Terry stated, "For the record, I'd like to state that Mister Hestry is indicating a nearby image of Mister Severus Snape, who was previously considered deceased until last night."

Terry looked about as ashen as their despondent. He looked to Ginny, "I have no further questions at this time, but would like to retain the right to redirect."

"Of course." She was shocked, surely. Who else could he be describing but Narcissa Malfoy? That meant that Narcissa took Snape to this place to...to do what? How did Narcissa get a hold of Snape in the first place? Did she save him from the Shrieking Shack? Ginny blinked and tried to reign in her thoughts to what this man could answer, specifically.

"Mister Hestry, how long has your establishment been in practice?"

"I've been in practice for fifteen years. Tennet Hall has been established for three."

"Under what circumstances did you open Tennet Hall?"

"I applied for and was given a grant by the University of Bath, underwritten by Sweep Industries, to create a facility to expand their psychological pharmaceutical research."

"Did you understand at the time of receiving this grant that it entailed working with the magical world?"

"No."

"At what point did you realize this?"

"Once we set up the facilities, we advised the university it was ready to receive patients. After three weeks of no response, we received a...visitor. Miss Sweep, herself. She explained the real purpose of our research."

"And what was that?"

"To...to treat and prevent magical growth in humans. To find a...cure...for magic."

Hestry looked around the room as he said this, then to each of them and she was sure their fully shocked faces. Ginny recovered, "Why?"

"It is ou—their belief that magical beings pose a threat to humanity that needs to be contained, and they were exploring the possibility of cutting off one's magical ability through the combination of traditional and magical pharmaceuticals. Studies have shown that when introducing certain magical ingredients to traditional binder and filler ingredients, their magical chemistry changes. In some instances, that magical chemistry can be provoked into attacking the locations in our brains that control and direct magical energy. Shall I go on?"

"N-no. That's enough for now, thank you. We shall most likely revisit the subject in the future."

Merlin and the Lady, what has gotten into people that they want to kill magic?

"Tell us about when Mister Snape, the man you pointed at on the poster, came to your facility."

"That was about two years ago. The blonde woman had some kind of short creature bring him to me. I think you call them elves, but I've never seen any story with an elf like that. It was sort of gray-green with big, buggy eyes...It-Its name was Dimity! I remember that because my grandmother used make it in a shop." He looked at her funny, but continued, "I thought it was odd, to name something after a piece of cloth, but then, everything about you people-"

"Mister Hestry, I'd advise you to hold your personal opinions, please."

"Leading, Terry."

"Protecting, Ginny."

"Fine." She looked down at her copious and frenzied notes, looking for anything she could exploit or follow...

"Who owns Tennet Hall?"

"Sweep does."

"Miss Sweep, or Sweep Industries?"

"Industries, I think."

"Mm." She looked over her notes again. Ah. "What happened three, no, four days ago?"

"You're referring to the abduction of that beaky fellow, eh?"

"I am referring to the removal of Mister Severus Snape from your facility. Please tell us what you can of the occurrence."

/

**Testing Halted on Potion/Pill Combination**

_-Authorities unsure of validity for human testing, "Further Safety Testing Required"_

_-Sweep Industries, USA in talks with St. Mungo's Research Dept on joint venture_

_-Longbottom expresses doubts, stock trade drops on futures for Wizarding Pharmaceuticals_

_-Explosion in Bath shuts down U.B. Experimental Facility, Statute of Secrecy invoked_

Narcissa stared. She stared with cold, blue eyes from the shifting, gut-twisting news in the Prophet to the shell of her once-powerful husband and took a deep, rib-shaking breath. This was it, then. Their last hope was gone.

Wasted, like three-hundred-year-old elf-made champagne on a party of cardigan-wearing halfbloods. Opportunistic cretins.

Not that she belittled their opportunism. She actually admired that. No, what she despised was the ham-fisted manner in which they barreled through her carefully wrought existence, all her family's aeons of planned perfection. What had been left of her proper acquaintances after the eradication of the Dark Lord had long ago fled to the continent, been imprisoned, or worse, stripped of their privileges in society.

She sniffed and tilted her chin up a fraction, looking away from...Lucius...to a Malfoy family crest that had been crafted into the stained glass window. They would have suffered the same fate as the worst of the lot if she hadn't taken desperate measures and approached the enemy looking for...she blinked and sighed. Because of that one action, Potter stood up for them and they had been able to keep their lands, their position in society. One may not be caught dead speaking to a Malfoy, but one would certainly still take their Galleons. At least they still had their money.

Or so she had thought.

Now, Narcissa had not been bred to be the head of the family by any means. She'd been bred to be a showpiece, a glittering diamond, a cabochon, the crown jewel. Never the figurehead. When Lucius came back from Azkaban...well. Someone had to take things over.

He'd been...empty. Not 'kissed', surely, or he'd be as unresponsive as—

She choked back a quiet sob and swallowed down bitter realism. Long past was the time of their misspent youth, their carefree strength. Even when the Dark Lord had overrun their house, Narcissa had to push and pull the strings of her marionette of a husband to keep their family together. Gone was the vibrant peacock she'd married and in his place was something...less. Whispers of betrayal ate at her heart for even thinking such things, knowing they'd been forced into their parts and knowing that the only thing left for her to do was to carry on.

At least he still responded to her attempts at conversation, even if they were forced and stilted. His apparent depression had reached far enough to start affecting their businesses and when all of his partners were either imprisoned, deported or dead...Narcissa was left holding the quill. Lucius had been kind enough to discuss what investments were where and what speculations had been planned with the dividends, but he'd had to be prodded for the information persistently. Daily.

Finally, after almost a full quarter of the same repetitive inundation of questions, Narcissa realized she had a better grasp on their state of affairs than he did. She never looked back and Lucius disappeared into his study, probably to educate himself on the finer merits of their french faun-made cognac production.

One thing she had started taking a chance on, something Lucius hadn't pressed into very much, was pharmaceuticals. Wizarding pharmaceutical research, to be exact, and there were only four facilities performing research, worldwide. It only made sense to continue their charitable donations to St. Mungo's, that was obvious. The Longbottoms were family, of a sort, and regardless of what Bella had done to them, one took care of family.

And one never put all their eggs into one basket, that way led to disaster, of course.

That left Saudi Arabia, Japan, or America. After very little consideration, it was an easy choice to work with a company whose sister research facility was located in Bath, so America it was.

Was. Had been.

Damn that Sweep woman. She'd taken an awfully big risk on that venture...

She closed her eyes slowly and looked left to the presence that was never more than ten feet away from her. The Malfoy ivory hair no longer held its luster and his father's gray eyes lay quietly half-lidded, staring lifelessly out the stained glass window before them. The Victorian wheelchair she'd brought in for him was polished to a high sheen and his clothes were immaculate, along with the warm woolen blanket tucked around his listless legs...his fine boned, waxy hands lay limp and still in his lap.

The sight was torture but it was hope. As long as he was alive, there was hope. A young man, once beautiful, once so brave and full of life and promise. A lovely young man, once so proud and arrogant, so expressive...

And now, Draco, her boy, her only joy in life, sat in his chair and stared, lost, out the stained glass window, slowly blinking at regular intervals.

That facility in Bath had been so close to finding a cure, they'd assured her. She'd banked on it.

And now it would be their downfall.

She sighed and rethought that statement. It wasn't the money. There would always be money, even if they had to sell that gold and diamond bottle of cognac from some wizarding son of the Tudor family Lucius had made an investment in. No, this was worse than money. This had to do with Snape being found, being linked to Sweep, and Narcissa being linked to them both.

And then having to explain why.

The similarities between Severus and Draco's states would be questioned...then someone would remember the odd occurrence with the Lupins in the Great Hall after the Battle of Hogwarts...

Someone would figure it out and that she was the only connection between all of them besides Potter's little group.

There were certain things one just did not do and resurrecting four people with a broken resurrection stone-turned-horcrux of the Dark Lord was one of them.

And there was no conveniently indebted Potter to save them, this time.

It was then that the large brass door knocker dropped like a death knell.

Three times, it hit, ringing against its backplate embedded within the thick, ancient oak door. It reverberated through the household, calling to her like a Valkyrie in flight over battle.

She turned back to see Lucius slipping into his study, shutting the door behind him quietly, a soft counterpoint underlying the rude noise attacking them. Draco sat utterly unaffected.

She folded the newspaper and looked again in the general direction of the front of the house.

That was it then. Time to face things like a Black instead of a Malfoy. That was what her sister had been saying all along, wasn't it? She closed the folded newspaper into the ledger book in front of her and stood with an inhalation, then called for her house elf,

"Dimity! Get the door."

/

Hermione grew rather tired of Severus shifting the paper as she tapped her foot on the floor, watching ripples of orange-yellow swim outward. Her hands gripped the edge of the small, single mattress on its wooden frame and she sighed.

She watched the wall behind him swell from shades of cloudy gray to crimson, finally settling on a deep blood red.

This room was slowly driving her psychotic. Maybe if she could drive him into conversation, they could get on the same feelings and then it wouldn't be so bad. Problem was, what in the name of Merlin were they to talk about?

Hermione thought to his surprisingly sexual attack only minutes before with a drop down deep in her belly that spun desire tripping along her veins. It rolled over her nerves with a sugary-electric headiness that kept revisiting her in pulsating waves and she fought to keep her expression and breathing under control...then she rolled her eyes at herself.

For starters, they could talk about this...his...

Sexy...

Um?

Dammit, why did he _do_ that when _he_ was the one who said he needed time?

She glared at the stupid newspaper in front of his face and gave up on waiting, "Well?"

She could have sworn he'd been still, but obviously not. _Now_, he was still. It was like he was holding his breath with the paper. Hermione was about to reach over and yank it away from him when he responded quietly,

"What."

Her mouth opened in indignation. 'What.' _What_. That's all he had to say? And in that tone! Oh, the nerve! Well, he couldn't wriggle his way out of this one, "What was _that_ all about?" She flung a hand out towards the wall next to the door to clarify in case he looked.

All she was met with was more silence behind the newspaper. Was he riling her up on purpose? Her fingers were literally claws before _The Prophet_ the moment before he continued blandly, "I believe there is a readout of some sort displaying this room's data. Mister Longbottom was once again displaying his ineptness with the art of timing."

She huffed dejectedly and retracted her claws, folding her arms over her chest and shaking her head. "And before that?"

Holy Mother, the paper was shifting away—yes, she could see his face!

She was momentarily stunned for it was...almost...Oh, if only he had the hair! Her breath caught in her throat at the intelligence and _knowledge_ shining in his eyes. "Are you really a _gorgon_, Hermione? A heartbreaker?"

She could literally feel her amazement fall off her face and into a sneer worthy of _him _at the mention of Skeeter's article. "About as much as _you_ were responsible for Bob Trowbridge's house burning down last spring."

There went the eyebrow. She stared at it in poorly hidden amazement as he snarked, "I never did like him. He was appalling with a cauldron."

This was astonishing. He was...did it? "So you do remember things?"

His face dropped from the slight flirtation he'd been apparently attempting into a more business-like manner, "Obviously."

She'd not even known he'd been doing it until it was gone, so subtle was the change. Her heartbeat increased. She vaguely noticed rose-imagery climbing up the walls, "More than you did yesterday?"

He apparently noticed it more than she did and looked about the room before he responded, "Much more."

She ignored it and pushed, "All of it?"

His eyes snapped back to hers with an unreadable expression, "Most of it, I think."

"And?"

He stared at her for a brief moment, then smirked. "I wasn't the first to call you 'Know-It-All'."

Her giddiness caught in the back of her throat in choked laughter, "You were, too!"

He affected a sarcastic attitude, "I distinctly remember overhearing a rather large group of students calling you that behind your back. I would have assumed you had heard it before it came from me."

It was his small smile at the end of his little speech that gave it away. She blinked and smiled in wonderment, "Are you trying to distract me?"

He peeked at her askant through his long, dark lashes, "Is it working?"

"No." She laughed in disbelief and, after a brief moment of indecision, stood up, "What else do you remember?"

His eyes took their time from her flats, to her denims, to her jumper and looked her all the way up, which went a long way to warming her cold self, but said something shocking of his. He answered, "You had very large teeth."

It took her a moment, but then she narrowed her eyes at him, "I thought you didn't see any difference."

He leaned a slight bit forward, dropping his leg where it was crossed on his knee as he went, as if imparting an important secret, "I lied."

He lied.

That would normally have been a horrible thing to say, but that meant he was telling her he'd not been indifferent to her. That he'd seen her and remembered her, regardless that she was an annoying pain in his side and...and?

He still did that thing at the door knowing all that.

She was nearly drunk with happiness. Here he was, back to normal, and flirting with her. He said he'd not pursue her until he knew who he was...and now he knew who he was. But...it was all because of that incident at Hestry's, wasn't it? She looked to the paper with the awful headlines that promised inquisitions and polls, then back to his face, "Are you very cross with me?"

"Cross? For this?" He looked from her to the paper strangely, as if the two couldn't possibly have anything in common. "Hardly. I _would_ have rather reached this conclusion without the massive magical cleansing, as it were—"

She stepped a half-step closer and he craned his neck up at her. She pressed him for more, "What does that mean?"

He looked up at her like Crookshanks used to when she'd been scolding him, "Stop standing over me, woman, it's uncomfortable."

Her face twisted in an attempt to conceal her amusement. He was back. The man she'd fallen in love with was back, along with the man she'd been coming to know over the past few days. She was in heaven. And all he was asking of her was to stop standing over him.

Oh, she could think of many different ways she could do that right about now...his lap, for one. Although, he might not want her to be quite so aggressive. Hmm. The chair, then? Yes, that would probably do it. "Alright, how about this?"

With a grin and a nod, she very carefully widened the chair he was sitting in to where there was just enough room for two people to sit very close to each other. She sat next to him and looked up at him expectantly.

He seemed amused, but it was hard to tell. He quirked his lips at her, "I believe that will suffice, thank you."

She smiled back, "Oh, I get a thank you out of him. What next?"

What next, indeed? Right as she was rolling her eyes and was properly distracted, he darted forward to kiss her rather soundly.

As soon as she was oriented, she inhaled against his mouth and brought her hands to his face to hold him in place, opening up to him as he brushed his lips across hers in a velvet dance of exploration. His hands were running up her sides again, one down to slip under her shirts and the other up and around her neck, into her hair.

She just kept holding on for dear life.

The hand traveling across her belly was soft and cool, but the strokes from each finger were confident, each one shooting sparks along her nerves and sensitizing her skin. It kept traveling up and up and she jerked in tiny convulsions against the overwhelming sensation of him touching her this way. She huffed into his mouth, licked his lower lip with the tip of her tongue, nibbled at his mouth and nuzzled at his nose when he started moving his lips away from hers.

Those lovely lips of his started a quest to meet his hand, down her neck in hot kisses and licks that sent her groaning. Her fingers finally gave up their hold on his face, only to dig themselves into the spiky depths of his short hair.

This would feel so good when his hair was long again, but what if he didn't want his hair long? They'd have to talk about that...later...when he wasn't stealing her breath away by kissing her collarbone and nuzzling the neck of her jumper.

She suddenly registered the unfamiliar weight of his hand on her brassier-clad breast and inhaled sharply, letting out a small sound of surprise and slipping one of her own hands down to meet his and hold it there.

He came up for air from her neck and after a moment, she caught her breath and opened her eyes to see his face... his glorious face wreathed in desire. His oubliette eyes were half-hidden by his heavy lids and somehow the arrogance of his nose made him look all the more sexy in her eyes. His breath was coming out in puffs against her face, meeting her own breathing and she could just see the edges of his teeth from between his open lips.

And oh, those lips.

Normally, they looked thin, pale, restricted, but not now. Kissed, they warmed up to a delicious shade of desire and filled out to perfection.

His lips were made to be loved by the one kissing him, which was such an amazing overture she had to kiss his mouth immediately.

And so she did, greedily, hungrily, as if she were dying and he was the only well left to drink.

He responded, participating in kind, much to her heart's delight, and also by tightening his grip on her hair. Using that grip, his hold on her breast and their kiss, he guided them to a stand and over to the bed.

Her knees hit the mattress and she made a small noise. He turned them so he was backed up to the bed and sat, drawing her into his lap.

Oh, heaven.

She nearly died of happiness when she felt his arousal pulse against her heat. Her little noises increased and she just went crazy. How could anyone hold back at this? His hands had made it to her buttocks and pulled her in with a breath-stealing rhythm.

God, why did they still have clothes on?

She dropped her head from a keen of ecstasy back down to his mouth and devoured him.

She heard noises out in the hallway, but Severus tensed up underneath her and gave a helpless shout against her neck.

She got even hotter just thinking that he'd done that and kissed him thoroughly. The noises outside got a little louder, but Severus distracted her again by pushing a hand between them and a thumb down against that sweet spot, hard and sure. Her breath hitched, he dropped his head to bite her nipple through her jumper and she exploded in quiet stars, vibrant gold and white dancing about her vision until he took her mouth again.

She floated in bliss for a few moments more until she heard a familiar voice call from the other side of the door,

"Hermione, get your shirt on and come on out. Snape needs his check up and you've got an Auror in Neville's office that's been waiting for you."

Oh, God, "Ronald, honestly..."

Severus nuzzled the side of her face and ran his hands over her back and buttocks, "What's worse, that he knew or that him knowing made us off?"

Her eyes flared at that insinuation and her mouth opened in shock, "Severus! That's...that's dirty."

He stared at her with lowered lids and a half-smile of knowledge, "It happened."

Her mouth stayed open for a few moments more—

"Hermione, come on. You can snog him later."

Her eyes flew back to the door in realization of what he was saying, "He's really not bothered by this."

"Considering previous examples, I can understand your shock."

She looked back to Severus with confusion, "Um, okay? Won't the nurses be mad?"

"About this?"

She nodded.

"I believe I can convince them of its healing properties enough not to worry about that."

She felt a bit poleaxed about that. Her body was enjoying a fantastic aftermath of touching from his hands sliding everywhere and he was so calm...

Perhaps there were benefits, after all?

She dropped in to kiss him and clambered off his lap, adjusting everything back into place. As soon as she reached the door, she turned back to him and saw the evidence of his behavior in his lap, "Um...If you don't mind?"

She pointed, he nodded. She zapped him with a good cleaning spell, blew him a kiss and knocked at the door for Ronald to let her out.

"Took you long enough." He tried to peek in the room, but that just didn't feel right.

She went for a good poke to distract him, "Some men take the time to get things right."

"Ouch?"

She looked at her former boyfriend in confusion, who was looking back at her in confusion. They started down the hall to Neville's office. "Why the question mark? You always sped through everything."

"You never complained."

"I was in love."

"Yeah, Ouch."

She huffed. "I don't mean to carp. Did the Auror say why he was here?"

Ronald shook his head as they passed by the nurse with a trolley full of potions and scrolls, then turned a corner to a hallway of office doors. He opened the third one on the left and let Hermione in first.

"Thank you."

"Mm."

"Hermione! Finally." A look passed between Neville and Ronald that led her to believe they'd had a conversation about her earlier indiscretion with Severus. Fantastic.

Neville gestured to the other man in the room, a man that looked to be in his late twenties, with brassy hair and blue eyes. "Miss Hermione Jean Granger?"

She nodded. He was entirely too cheerful for her tastes but she waited patiently.

He continued, "You are hereby summoned to appear before the Wizengamot on the twenty-fifth of October, two-thousand at nine o'clock in the morning."

He handed her a scroll which turned from orange to blue as soon as her hand touched it. He nodded in approval, "All the details are in there, I bid you good-day. Lots more of these to hand out, you know."

At that, the red-robed man strode off with a nod to everyone and she blinked at her two old friends. "Well." Curious, as ever, she opened the scroll and read the summons.

Halfway through, she let out a growl of outrage and dropped into a seat, followed by Neville and Ronald.

"What's it say?"

She looked up, down at the paper in disbelief, then back up again, waving it at them. "Aiding and abetting in a fraudulent death. Aiding and abetting the movement of unregistered magical persons about Britain." She looked again, "Failure to file immigration registration of unregistered magical person. Breaking and Entering Private Property."

She wanted to crumble this thing in her hand but it probably had some kind of Imperturbable on it. "Violation of the Statute of Secrecy through numerous acts at Tennet Hall. Violation of the Statute of Secrecy by not reporting the explosion at Number Twelve Grimmauld Place. Destruction of Property at both Tennet Hall and Number Twelve Grimmauld Place. Leaving the Scene of a crime..."

Her mouth dropped open in shock as the length of the list registered. "Is Umbridge still in the Ministry? Did I miss something? I mean, I knew this was going to be big, but, my God!"

Ronald was the first to speak, "Merlin, Hermione, this is...this is..."

She nodded with incredulity, "Yeah!"

He winced, "Have you talked to Ginny?"

She rolled up the summons and sat back in the chair, "No, but she's talked to Remus and Tonks already."

Neville spoke up, tentatively, "She flooed me about an hour ago, asking to have me on as a consultant. Sounds like she's already got something set up." His tentative smile was sweet, and she knew he meant to be encouraging, but if Ginny felt she needed Neville's help, this she'd known it was going to get to that point. This was going past Inquisition, into a Trial, at least on some levels.

Shit.

Hermione nodded in shock. This was...Lord, no telling what they lined up at Remus' door. The Ministry had been aching to find a way to take a bite out of his Werewolf-rights efforts, and this just might do it. "Listen, I've got to go. I want to find out if Remus got anything like this." They nodded. "I hope not, but I want to know. Neville...um. Is it okay if I come back later?"

He looked up from a chart he'd been reading through, "Actually? Whatever you're doing is helping him."

She stared, open-mouthed. "E-excuse me?"

He gestured to the item in his hand, "His core magic readings spiked off the charts when you two...g-er-yeah-and it leveled out at a twenty percent higher rate afterwards."

She cleared her throat and stared him down as his face grew beet red, "You're serious?"

He may have been embarrassed, but he kept her stare, "As a Venomous Tentacula."

She smiled, "Then I'll be back later for...improvements." At that, she swept out the door and headed home. Who knew how much better he'd get with full-on sex? The prospect was exciting.

/

Ron leveled a look at Neville. "Are you pulling my leg? Twenty percent, my arse. You're just telling her that."

His old roommate handed over his chart and showed Ron the data. "This is last night when he came in. Here and here are his nightmares. Woke up, saw Hermione, I caught them kissing or groping or whatever and then a wait period...and here. They get into it, he gets off, and look, it's consistent."

Ron looked up from where they'd been looking at the strategic points on the data chart. "Neville, if a bloke could get stronger magic just by having sex, we'd all be strong as hell."

And damn if he didn't make Neville blush. That was weird. Huh. He felt the need to say something conciliatory, "Well, maybe it's just that we have to be with someone special?"

Neville nodded. "There have been cases where a couple's magic can heal, or even cross over to level the other out."

Ron's brow furrowed, "Oh, wait, you mean, he's stealing Hermione's magic?"

Neville shook his head, "More like she's making more for him. Or his body is reacting to the stimulus now that he's fairly free of those magic inhibiting drugs that fellow had him on."

"Actually, that last one makes sense."

"Yeah. So, it's okay for her to...you know. The healers won't stop it."

"Weird."

They stood there for a moment in silence and Ron wondered...of all things...when Neville lost his overbite.

"Yeah. So, um, h-how's Harry?"

"Harry? He's fine. We just got back from this crap mission all over the continent where we had to go to all these bars. Someone threw a fish at us, can you believe that?"

He squinted his eyes and tilted his head a bit, "Um...why'd they throw a fish?"

Ron shrugged, "I dunno, I guess it was handy."

Neville laughed. He actually laughed at his little joke, which was kind of nice. He smiled and snorted.

"How's your mum? Your family?"

"They're good. Fleur and Bill are coming for a visit next week, so if we can get Charlie at Halloween, we'll have a full house. Mum'll be nuts, but happy."

"That's nice."

"You?"

"Me? Ugh. My Gran's got either her bridge club coming over, or her mahjongg club. I think its about time I find a flat, actually, but she keeps railing at me about economy. I can see the sense, really, but I just want to be my own man, you know?"

And he did. Oddly enough, until Neville really said that, he'd forgotten, after settling down after the Battle, what it had been like to feel that restlessness. It had been itching at him again lately and Neville saying what he just did made it all gel in his head.

He nodded with a smile, "Yeah. Hey, you done?" He gestured to the desk. "You wanna grab a pint? I know it's lunch, but..."

Neville looked down to the file in his hand and dropped it like a foreign object. "Yeah, I'd like that." He came around the desk and Ron followed him out of the office.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd done something this spontaneous, but it felt fun.

/

Dimity, being the obedient house elf that she was, lightly scratched on the library door where Narcissa was sitting with Draco, pulling her nervous and determined mind away from the face of her son. The beast's timid little voice was quiet enough that one had to strain to hear her at times, but Narcissa rather preferred it that way, instead of that screeching, gibbering, nonsense that had come out of her predecessor's mouth.

"Madam Malfoy, Dimity begs your pardon, but Miss Genevra Weasley wishes to speak with you. Dimity has placed her in the blue parlor." Huge, wavering, yellow eyes glinted back and forth, waiting for her Mistress' response.

Narcissa stared at the little beast in shock. Weasley? Here? Why—of course. Panic clawed at her heart for a brief moment but she shoved that ruthlessly aside. Her husband had tried to kill this girl eight years ago. She groaned and hoped this had nothing to do with that diary incident. Potter said that had been taken care of.

Honestly, that was the only reason she could fathom Miss Weasley coming to a Malfoy...unless...She'd read about her promotion in the paper last week in the exchange section. She could be here investigating this thing with Severus.

More panic seized her chest before she grappled it down under control. She had business to attend to. Business with a woman that her husband had given a horcrux to. Even she didn't know if Lucius knew what the Dark Lord handed him, but she was fairly certain he'd not have handed a horcrux to a child. Even if it was a Weasley.

Perhaps this Genevra was here to bury the hatchet, so to speak. They were cousins, of a sort, after all.

Well. Prevaricating was getting her nowhere. She inhaled and smoothed her hands down her lap.

Again, like a Black, not a Malfoy. She stood again to her full height, pulling as much of her magic into her intimidating stature as she dared and looked down her nose at the house elf to inform it of her plans. "Bring some tea, I will see her. After that, you may come back here and watch over Master Draco."

"Oh, thank you, Madam! Thank you!"

Her eyes flashed to ice at the house elf's growing enthusiasm and warned quickly, "Remember to wash his face if he dribbles. I will not have my son sitting in such an ignominious fashion as I found him last time I trusted him to you."

"Yes, Madam, of course, Madam! Thank you!"

These sick little enthusiasms turned her stomach. She waved at Dimity in dismissal, "Begone, you mad little thing and take tea to our guest."

The mad little thing was overjoyed and snapped from the room with a squeak.

Narcissa brushed imaginary dirt from her sleeves and shivered. "Ugh, effacing little rodent. Sometimes I wonder at Molly's decision to do without them." She looked down at her polished nails and sighed, thinking of all the things she'd have to do on her own after a long day at the books. "Then again, not really."

She took a calming breath and turned to her son, palming his head with one hand and sliding it down to his neck in affection. "I will find a way to fix you, dearest." Her eyes burned a little, "If it takes every last resource we have, I promise you that. I will find a way."

Gray eyes stared half-lidded out the window behind her, unmoving, slowly blinking.

Besides, the gods may actually be giving her a window to pry open now that the door's been slammed in her face. The only way to find out would be to actually talk to the girl.

Her hand slid down to her son's shoulder and made a slight squeeze before she took another breath and steeled herself to leave the room.

Walking through her house used to be a lovely affair, giving her such a feeling of superiority and accomplishment. She'd achieved exactly what her mother told her to exactly how she'd said to do it and no one ever questioned her place here. The Black family was old, tenaciously pure and somewhat well-off, but marrying into the Malfoys had been an exceptional coup for her and her mother. Especially after what happened with Andromeda and that Muggle.

Someone had to erase that particular event from relative recent memory and her marriage had done just the thing. She ran her fingers along a gilt picture frame and looked up to see a rather large depiction of their wedding day.

Narcissa sat, young, perfect, shades of ivory and white, in front of Lucius who stood behind her with his hand on her shoulder. His silver robes were immaculately cut, as well as his gorgeous hair.

No one knew little Draco was already there, deep inside his mother's womb, formed from their one indiscretion before the wedding.

She sighed again, then turned away from the portrait, hands fisted, and stalked the rest of the way to the blue parlor.

Dimity was just setting the tray down when Narcissa sailed in the open doorway. It squeaked again and snapped out of the room.

The women took each others measure before stepping forward for pleasantries. After a brief moment of caution, Narcissa stepped into her role of hostess by reaching forward with her fingertips. "Miss Weasley, I can't say I would be any more surprised by another's presence in my house at this moment. How may I help you?"

The Weasley girl awkwardly grabbed her fingers in a sort of handshake that men were supposed to do and let go with a bit of a grin. "Missus Malfoy. Thank you for seeing me without notice. I understand you must be busy, so I'll get right to the point."

Interesting. There would be no dancing about with this one, apparently. That could be...refreshing. Speaking of refreshments, she motioned for them to sit and she poured the tea.

"I'm sure you've read this morning's Prophet. I'm representing Mister Snape in the Wizengamot inquisition being arranged and in one of the preliminary depositions given regarding his reappearance into the Wizarding world, your description and that of your house elf, Dimity, was mentioned."

Narcissa carefully placed the teapot back down to tray. Of all the things this girl could have come here for...

What did she want? What was she asking? A million questions were skipping around her head in a nervous staccato, striving to be heard, but she forced them all back. This had to be done correctly or it was all for naught. They straightened out the simplicities of making tea—milk, sugar, lemon, etcetera—before she answered Miss Weasley's implied question.

She looked to her guest and stated, "What of it?"

They each eyed the other over the gold rim of their porcelain cups.

"It was implied that you may have more information on where he might have been before his term at Tennet Hall."

Term. That was an interesting way of putting it. Either she knew so much more or so much less than she was letting on. "Implications are interesting things. They can mean so much and yet, so little."

Miss Weasley gave her a hard look with a flattened brow and lips that spoke of either exasperation, impatience, or frustration. She sat her cup and saucer on the cherry and ebony inlaid table between them and leaned forward.

"Look. I'm not here, officially. You're not being questioned, this hasn't even gone before the Wizengamot yet, but no one even knows where Snape's been for the past two years. Now, last night, he's involved in an explosion in Bath and I've got to keep him from being eaten alive by the press and the Ministry from recanting their ruling on his now not-so-posthumous trial after VWII. Things will come back out in the open that were thought laid to rest, Missus Malfoy."

As if Narcissa's raised eyebrow wasn't clarification of her understanding enough, Miss Weasley continued, "Actions taken and not taken by many people during the Battle of Hogwarts will be revisited and if I don't nip this _mess_ in the bud very quickly, I won't be able to control where it goes."

Both of her eyebrows shot up in significant meaning as her chin tilted downward and the girl couldn't have been more blunt than a bludger.

Give up what she knew now, or she'd make sure the hounds went sniffing up Narcissa's skirts if Snape's posthumous trial gets rehashed.

Weasley, the girl may be, but that was an almost-Black move. She was almost proud of the girl, after a speech like that. Narcissa could also get the sense that Miss Weasley was offering protection if she was cooperative this early in the investigation.

How very interesting.

And tempting.

And terrifying.

Of course, the side door for family knocked at that time and completely threw off her concentration. _Please don't say Andromeda chose now to visit?_ Whoever it was knocked again.

Miss Weasley looked towards the parlor door and out into the hallway to see what she could see, which would be obviously nothing.

Except she could hear the tell-tale sounds of Dimity letting Andromeda in. Damn that over-achieving creature! She smiled tightly at Miss Weasley. "Excuse me. It seems I have another guest, but I shall be back momentarily. Please make yourself comfortable."

There, that should leave her a pleasant impression while she went to deal with her meddlesome sister.

She slipped out into the hallway, pulled the door to the jamb and sighed just as her brunette sister came down the hall. It was so lovely to have a sister, again. Bellatrix was pitifully insane those last few...decades...and they'd all been forbidden to even talk to Andromeda. Bella was the last of the line alive to be able to enforce that rule, so, Narcissa, being bereft of so much family, immediately sought Andromeda out after the Battle of Hogwarts. After all, it was partly for her that she'd revived Nymphadora and Remus.

Their sisterhood took over any awkwardness and decades of abandonment was left ignored in favor of starting afresh.

She stepped towards Andromeda and whispered fiercely, "Eddy, now is not the time for visits."

That drew her up. "Whyever not? I'm you're only sister. It's not like you have much company in the way of your lump of a husband."

They both noticed the pregnant pause left without mentioning Draco, but Andromeda was always too keen for her own good. Her eyes slid to the mostly-closed parlor door like a gossipy old maid. "Oh, but you _do_ have company. Dare I ask who? Cissy! Do you have a paramour! Great Lady, at last!"

Good gods, when would this old thing get it in her head about Fidelity Charms? "Oh, do shut up, it's nothing like that. The Weasley girl is here and asking questions about Severus."

"Uh-oh." If it wasn't so serious, Narcissa would be pleased to have brought Eddy up short twice in one conversation.

As it was..."Right. So now is not the time for visits, Andromeda."

Oh no. No. She was getting that Look. It either meant someone was about to be eviscerated or brought into the fold. Andromeda was thinking up a plan awfully fast.

Her sister smiled, "Are you sure?"

She had enough guilt in her from abandoning her now-only sister for so many years that she just had to ask, "What are you thinking?"

"Would she be here if she thought you had some _nefarious_ hand in his incapacitation?"

Now that was a good point, and one she'd not had time to think up. "She'd probably have brought one of her brothers along with her if that were so. If not, your son-in-law."

"Exactly. This may be your chance to set the board to your advantage before the game gets too far afoot."

Board? Afoot? She sounded like a cross between Severus and Agatha Christie. "Are you sure we had the same mother?"

She glared back playfully. "I'm the only one that looks like her, you ninny. Now let me in there and let's get started."

Narcissa looked back over her shoulder to the door, still pulled-to. "Are you sure?"

"Well, she wouldn't be expecting me, now would she? We could take advantage of her surprise and keep her off balance."

Narcissa couldn't help it. She snorted.

Andromeda gleamed. "Bet no one besides me has ever seen you do that."

And, there went her brief bought of happiness. "No one alive and non-vegetative."

Her sister's face went immediately repentant and serious. "Oh, Cissy. It'll be alright. There's still Longbottom's research at St. Mungo's. And Sweep isn't out of the picture, just their Bath facility. They still have all the research they did."

"Yes, but they almost had it, they said so."

There was a hesitation in Andromeda's voice when she responded, "Are you sure...they've been...completely honest with you?"

"Excuse me?" Just thinking that they hadn't was enough to send her into a panic.

Her sister saw this and put a hand on her arm in placation, but continued, "I just get the feeling that that Sweep woman had disgusting scruples and would just as easily double cross you as that Hestry fellow. And we know now she gypped _him_."

Her _language_, sometimes! "Don't be common, Eddy."

She rolled her eyes, "Oh, come on. They blew up their entire facility and release every single patient and not one record was found. Don't you think that was more than a little strange?"

"Surely Hestry hid the files..."

"And according to my good friend in the intensive care ward, all ten patients match Severus' medical profile, if only to a lesser degree."

"I'm not following you."

"I'm only putting out the possibility that they were working on something other than a cure for Draco. High powered American companies don't necessarily redirect an entire program of University funding just to save one young man."

They were silent as Narcissa digested this painful bit of reality. She was right and this was something that had bothered her after reading those articles in the Prophet this morning. It just hadn't clicked until her sister pointed it out to her...perhaps she'd just not wanted to see it. She looked sadly up to her sister's eyes, "This has bothered you for a while, hasn't it?"

A resigned face nodded, "Yes."

"Why didn't you say something before?"

"Honestly?"

She nodded in assent, afraid to say too much at this point.

"I didn't want it to be possible. This morning's paper and my little talk with Judy made it possible."

Judy? "I'm still not following..."

Andromeda scowled at her, "Narcissa. Stop being thick and think about it. They obviously had at least one project running before you came along, right?"

"Right."

"Would they have stopped whatever that was to focus solely on your problem?"

"Of course not."

She rolled her eyes and flung out a hand, "Had they ever actually produced evidence of progress towards Draco's solution?"

Narcissa crossed her arms and shifted her feet. "They said Severus was making breakthroughs with the medication they'd given him. They said they'd have a solution to all my problems by Halloween."

Andromeda's arched eyebrow spoke volumes of how suspicious she found that statement, "Did they say that before asking for a cheque?"

She grit her teeth, not wanting to respond in the affirmative. "It means nothing."

Another, higher pitched, feminine voice spoke before either of them could continue,

"Except that's not true. It means a great deal if we can prove Sweep's been performing illegal activities within Wizarding society."

Ginevra Weasley had poked her head through the doorway, shamelessly eavesdropping on her conversation.

Merlin, she'd not even thought to use a silencing spell. Her own home was making her soft.

Miss Weasley greeted her sister, "Hello, Andromeda."

Her sister smiled back, "Ginny. It's good to see you again."

"How's Teddy?"

"I left him with his mother, well-rested and ready for his supper."

She laughed in response, "You're cruel!"

In mock defense, she replied, "I'm not cruel, I'm a grandmother."

Narcissa winced at that, not knowing if she'd ever be able to be one, now. At least she could live vicariously through her sister...when she could handle it...

Miss Weasley spoke directly to her in a sympathetic tone, "I'm sorry, it's kind of an occupational habit to overhear conversations. Draco is ill?"

Narcissa blinked at this young woman and went over the options before her. Hmm. Well, there weren't that many when she took her last promise to Draco into consideration, were there? She already knew something was up, and that she was involved. She also knew that Eddy knew, which meant that it might get back to Nymphadora and Remus, who, according to Eddy, were still in denial.

If she were ever going to control what would happen to her family, now would be the time to do it.

"I think we'd better sit down. Tea?"

/

End Chapter 13

Notes:

The newspaper clippings were a lot of fun to create. I hope they weren't too weird or hard to follow. Hopefully it was easy to understand that VW stands for Voldemort wars and not Volkswagen ;)

I chose Godric's Golden Gorgon for Skeeter's story on Hermione because a: it alliterates and we all know how lovely alliteration is for newsprint and b: c'mon, it's Skeeter.

Imagine that these newspaper articles are a bunch of hooey. It is, afterall, the Daily Prophet ;)

MLE, magical law enforcement. Yes, I looked up the ministry levels as best I could. Please suspend any critiquing of the legal section. It really is a hash of what I remember from my own deposition on a car accident case and what I could find for examples. I am not a student of American or British Law and therefore have made all sorts of mistakes. Then again, this is Wizarding Law, it has flaws too. JKR didnt' take the time to write a Penal code, though by the time I'm through with this chapter, I'm pretty sure I did. ;)

The poster. Ah, the poster. That was a silly little idea I had and I'd love to find a way to make a real one, but I'm not that talented. Perhaps one of you are ;)

As for the little non-bombshell of the magi-kill pill, I am not a chemist, nor am I a potioneer. I would assume that muggle binders affect magical ingredients, however ;) let's pretend, shall we?

Dimity the House Elf! It always struck me that Dobby was named as such. Dobby is a kind of fabric, so I kind of figured that Narcissa would name her elves after low-grade fabrics. There's probably a Cambric and Gingham running around, too.

Ah, and now we have the big reveal! How many of you guessed it? Big bad American corporation taking advantage of poor Narcissa! O.o

Now, Narcissa. Ever since the woman was introduced to me on the page, I've seen Joanna Lumley. Always. It's never failed me. So for her to have a sister she can call Eddy is hilarious to me. A million points to the house of your choosing if you know why. The gold and diamond bottle of cognac? Look it up, it's real. It's also worth about a million dollars!

As for the hotness? Severus' accident sent a charge through his body that burned through any remaining drugs in his system. He's been essentially force-detoxed. The drug was affecting the magical connection between his life and his memories. :) It's alive! And hot for student! He wasn't able to get an erection before...but in the previous chapter he sat down VERY QUICKLY as soon as it started showing interest. Then he thought, what the hell ;)

Now, if only we can just fix Draco...

Ah, one more note, Amos Diggory is head over the Dept for the Control of Magical Creatures. In case you were wondering.

Music:

Smoke and Mirrors by Gotye

Crazy by Gnarls Barkley

Angels and Men by Juno Reactor

Metamorphosis Three by Philip Glass


	15. Chapter 15

A/N: My deepest apologies for my absence, I shall endeavor to make that not happen again. I give you the next chapter, with much love. xoxo Dena

* * *

><p>Chapter 14<p>

Just as Severus had settled himself to sit in silence and count his misfortunes, a high-pitched sing-song at once unfamiliar met him and made him spin his head back to the door, "Here we are, Mister Snape, safe and sound, safe and sound."

His eyes widened fractionally, watching helplessly as the supposed nurse in offensive lime green robes continued rolling into the room inch by inch with her trumbling trolley at a snail's pace.

He slipped his hands under his thighs and fought the urge to cover his ears.

His ears. Great _Merlin_, his ears. They felt like they'd been scraped raw by Umbridge's dulcet tones, but this woman's voice could give that toad _lessons_ in simpering. He looked back towards the offending orator and found his eyes nearly burnt by the unfortunate collision of lime green robes and pomaded orange curls.

She turned to face him with some sort of instrument in one hand and her wand in the other but he took no notice. The look on her face was enough to intimidate _him_ into sitting backwards a fair inch and straighter, still sitting on his hands.

He swallowed rather noisily and held himself rigid on the mattress. Thank whatever deity deigning to listen that Hermione had shot him with a cleansing charm for this horrid woman looked him up and down as if he were some wayward teenager, grubby behind the ears and a weeks-worth of scrubbing to do about it.

They may have been inept and disgustingly free with his person, but Hestry's facility _had_ at least kept him clean. They may have treated him without dignity, but it was completely _impersonal_.

This woman was bringing to mind an unholy union between Molly Weasley and Dolores Umbridge. He wanted nothing to do with it and his body finally started reacting to his mental commands to _move. _

She was too quick for him. Within a moment, her heavy hand was on his shoulder, holding him in place more firmly than the weight of ages. He looked from her meaty hand, slowly up her green-clothed arm to her surprisingly clean face save for bleeding red lipstick. She smiled with a closed mouth and squeezed his shoulder for good measure.

"Settle down, Mister Snape, all is well, here. I need to take a few diagnostics and administer your potions, then we'll order your food tray. Won't that be nice?"

They stared between each other for a few moments. Her eyebrows prodded the correct answer from him and he felt an old anger crawling through his skin, like an animal beating its way out. Her eyes steeled as she saw his resistance and her dominant position reminded him so much of...

Just when he was about to show her exactly what he thought of that dominance, she—well, she changed. Her eyes softened and she removed her hand, backing away a step to smile at him.

"I'm sorry, I've gone and upset you. I'm so used to the rambunctious lot that come through here... I'm not used to those that deserve respect. You'll have to forgive me." She stepped over to her cart and smiled again, his own expression one of surprise and suspicion.

She continued, "Now," she began, an acid green quill with hideous pink stripes poised behind her over a scroll of parchment—where had he seen that before?—"You've had a few knocks, haven't you?"

He stared at her in astonishment, his mouth nearly gaping in the abrupt change in subject. Was this woman mad? Did he need to try and take her wand and force his way out before he became ensconced in another madhouse?

He kept staring at her, trying to discern her meaning.

Was she serious? The most overstated first impression in all of Britain just made the largest understatement in all magical history? He blinked. This was almost worth laughing at.

She continued, "Yes, yes, I know, it's hard to speak of. Don't worry, my dear. Don't you worry one little bit." Her hand slapped the air horizontally in a supposedly comforting gesture that had him sitting backwards, afraid she would smack him.

_My dear?!_ He scowled fully at her presumption. He looked to the shut door and now wondered fully how to divest her of her wand and get out of this room as quickly as possible. Before he could strategise a plan, she derailed him by shoving an apparatus around his wrist and tapping it with her wand. He jumped backwards in his seated position, but she held firm again and kept smiling.

She smiled, saccharine and bright red crushed beetle carapaces, "We'll have you right as rain in no time. Stick your finger in here, please." She offered a small white thimble-like item and as soon as his finger was in it, she tapped that with her wand, "Very good, very good, thank you." The quill wrote furiously.

"You were in the papers, you know. All of them." She continued speaking as she removed the items from his arm, "Not many stories get carried in ALL the papers, so when that happens, everyone pays attention."

When the items were secured in a little case on her trolley, she turned around and gave him a considering look. "I think you've got a bit of a following, if you know what I mean? It can be a bit... _dangerous_, if you're not careful."

He tried to gather her meaning, but rather thought _she _was a bit dangerous.

She leaned forward in a conspiratorial tone and he retreated, slightly horrified by her familiarity, "_Some_ people will be wanting to capitalize on your new-found heroism."

"I'm certain," he sneered, more to get her garishly perfumed pomade away from his immediate vicinity than any form of agreement.

She did actually back away to his relief, but affected a sort of sad sympathy, "Yes. We've had to shut down the wing several times to keep them out, but _some_ slip in. Yes. Hmm." Her face hardened a bit and he became concerned for this healer's mental well-being. "We'll take care of that, never you mind."

"Hmm." Longbottom had better come visit him soon and explain just why he was assigned this particular healer and then assign him another one or he'd find a way to give that boy detention, school or not.

She just kept going, "Now, take this," she handed him a small purple bottle, presumably a potion.

Finally, potions instead of pills.

He eagerly took it, uncorked and sniffed it. Some sort of invigorating draught... detoxification... nourishment... hmm. These were bound to be interesting side effects. He downed it in one gulp and tuned in to her nattering,

"We need our man operating on all levels, don't we? Yes, yes, yes. So. You need _rest_. That is the single most important thing. Rest and peace and quiet." She nodded emphatically enough that he wondered if her head was kept on by the weight of her chins.

She then looked him dead in the eyes and vowed, "I will make absolutely sure of that."

Cerunnos, _please_, anything to get her out of here, "Th-thank you." Oh, it was so hard to say those words to her, but it was worth it to get her to simply _leave_.

She took the bottle out of his hand and beamed, "You're quite welcome, Mister Snape. And if you need anything, anything at all, you can call on _me_. I am here to take care of you, as if you were my own—" Her face screwed up in tears, oh, Merlin, _no_, "My own child."

_Sweet Ashwinder Eggs, burn me now._

Her wet, piggy eyes wibbled back and forth across his face, "You remind me of him, you know?"

He could do nothing but stare. No wonder he reminded her of what he assumed was her boy or her spouse, if all the man could do was stare in response just to get her to leave.

In a bawling fit of rubbery tears, she finally did so, with her cart bouncing behind her.

The door closed with a firm, hermetic snap and he breathed a sigh of relief.

Finally, a moment to himself. He didn't even care if she sent food or not.

He stared at the door, silent and breathing, waiting for any further interruptions and hoping for none. As the seconds turned to minutes and his eyes grew dry, his eyesight losing color from staring so long, he finally assumed he would be left in peace.

Severus inhaled deeply and dropped his vision to blink at the gray floor, watching it slowly flicker on around his feet.

His bare feet. Sitting alone in an empty room on a single bed, staring at his feet, waiting for his medication to take effect.

He blinked and a shiver ran up his spine, into his brain and bullet-birds danced out across his peripheral vision along the walls. A haze of color was rising up from the floor, like a sickly yellow mist, and he swallowed down his panic, remembering that he was in the magical world, now. They knew who he was.

It wasn't the same. Not really.

Only...

It assaulted him at the similarities between this day and four...Cerunnos, had it only been four days? He mentally counted and confirmed... yes, only four days had passed, and instead of a plastic window, he now had a window into his very emotions. Instead of ascetic and bland colorscape, he had every color of the spectrum.

Except, at least now, he had his mind.

It was the only concession that was keeping him this side of panic.

Well...that and Hermione.

_Merlin_. He scrubbed a hand over his scalp and wondered what in _England_ he was doing with her? Life had certainly taken a sharp turn with her, now, hadn't it? He could barely breathe...everything was so different from what it was just a few days ago.

Conscious, aware, awake, and knowledgeable, he felt the potions start to take effect without debilitating him, coursing out from his stomach and through his body. It was a wonderful feeling, a familiar feeling, something that finally felt _right._ He sighed again and looked around him at the room that started its pulsating waves of color back up.

He'd not noticed that the colors had negated with the nurse's arrival. Had they retreated in her horrific wake or had she simply turned them off? Interesting question. Could extreme emotion override them? Or extreme opposite emotions, perhaps?

What could he do with this room around him? The possibilities were really quite endless...

What would happen if he were to attempt magic, now? Just something simple, really, especially with no wand. Perhaps a summoning charm with the paper.

He eyed it with purpose and gripped the edge of the bed in thought.

Severus was, for lack of a better term, at a loss as to what to do with himself. He wanted to attempt some form of magic, but was afraid of what kind of drain that might do without a wand to serve as an introductory conduit so early in his recovery. It was not a remarkable feat for him to perform wandless magic in his...old life, he guess he could call it...but now...

Regardless of regaining those memories, he still could not reconcile himself_ now_ with himself_ then_.

There were so many things wracking his brain that didn't make sense...that he couldn't reconcile with how his logic just...worked.

For example, all the logic in this great, wide world couldn't get him to understand what in blue blazes made Lily Evans Potter so confoundedly fascinating to him for so very, very long. Surely, they'd been friends and she'd been beautiful. Surely, she'd been his only friend in a lonely and loveless home life, but was that enough for him to...what? Risk his life? He snorted quietly out of his obnoxiously large nose. Hardly. Respect for the value of his own life (and therefore believing that risking it for someone else held any value) was lost the moment Dumbledore turned away from him in the infirmary after Lupin's attack. Something inside Severus had literally shrunk away, then, never to be regained.

If his life was worth so little, if it mattered not what he risked his LIFE for, what then had he been risking? Her life? He wasn't really risking that, either, was he? He was begging for her _protection_ on all sides, so it wasn't _risking_ that, it was risking something _else_ at all costs to protect it, so _what_ was it and more importantly, _why_?

Yes. _Why_?

She had been, most importantly, his first friend, his only friend for so long...he understood that connection. He even understood why he'd have latched onto that so fiercely when the rest of his childhood had so gone to shit, but that only explained his attachment to her, not why he'd go to every end of everything just to ensure an old friend who had turned her back on him and married another man was so very fully protected.

And then to swear virtual fealty to her son?

Granted, there was that matter of Potter, Senior somewhat saving his life during Lupin's attack and the resulting, unresolved life-debt, but standing back and looking at the resulting mess of things with a logical mind?

Severus was at a loss.

He could not understand, when he turned his back on so many who'd betrayed him for so much less, when he'd so easily written off hundreds of thousands of people through the hallowed halls of Hogwarts as beneath himself and not worthy of his means...

But one woman so deftly captured a loyalty that was then later exploited...

There must have been something deeper than what he could now explain to himself. There just had to have been.

He shook his head and leaned back on his hands, visually tracing the line where the wall met the ceiling

It was like there was this deep gape in his recollection where Lily Evans was supposed to be. All memories pointed to friendship, companionship, but all of his actions pointed to love bordering on obsession. Something obviously and dreadfully unrequited.

He frowned at the possibility that he was missing something so horribly important, something that meant so very much to him that he'd been manipulated like some milkboy...either naïve or nose-led with no other choice. A bitter look sank back across his face. Of course, it would have given Dumbledore the perfect leash to tether him by, wouldn't it? Abusing his love for Lily as a means to manipulate him into doing anything...

_What will you give me in return?_

_Anything..._

He anguished at this realization and his mouth dropped open slightly. He looked about the gray, mist-like images forming around the room as the walls boiled with clouds. False lightning struck from overhead and made him flinch as a figure stood behind the shadows pouring forth flatly along the wall in front of him.

It looked like a living painting of that night, the night Severus had gone to Dumbledore to beg for Lily's life. Up on that crag, with it storming like mad, begging for mercy, for anything, just to keep Lily alive...

His eyes tried to focus on the rolling clouds, the foggy imagery before him. Would it really be able to manifest an image of _him?_

The flat shadows came alive and melted, bled like pooled, black blood down the wall as they hit the perpendicular floor, leeching away from the spot where they hid something on the wall. Was that...?

He peered closer, his heart beating a faster pitch and his mouth contorting into a deeper scowl as he realized the room was actually projecting a clearer form on the wall.

Not just any form, either. The very man he wanted to reveal to himself.

Why did he hinge so much on this man? What did it matter? He was dead, he'd killed him and at his wishes. This was a closed issue...wasn't it?

Wasn't it?

He blinked and started growing colder.

He could feel something within his own body pull and bleed away from a spot in the middle of his back, making his neck itch and his shoulders wriggle nervously. At his feet, a sickly ichor of yellow pooled in the light of the floor, never actually touching his feet, but slowly swimming out towards the black dye of shadow revealing the stoic and august figure of Albus Dumbledore.

Yellow Ichor and Black Dye met in the middle and a bright purple jacob's ladder sizzled between them, marching outwardly until they divided the room diagonally. He had the insane urge to stand on the false image of electrical charge, but was slightly afraid of what would happen if he did. Cautiously, he placed one foot down to the floor in the yellow light. It rippled blackness and a slight charge went up his leg to that spot on his back. He reached backwards to scratch it. It felt slightly numb and he wrenched his shoulder back into a normal position before he set his other foot on the floor. The numb, itching sensation increased and the yellow in the room grew brighter, the black darker, the electricity zapping a magnetic pull that buzzed in his ears and cocked his head.

He gritted his teeth and stepped towards the line, looking at the construct of Dumbledore on the wall as he did so. The boiling clouds whipped around the room and blew the lavender silk robes and heavy white beard around the man that stared back at him with grimness and...yes. He recognized that final flinty glare easily enough...hatred.

Severus' heart dropped a bit. No matter how often he realized someone hated him, or that he'd been manipulated, nothing more than a puppet to suit a need, rather than someone wanted or needed...it never failed to hurt.

Somehow, he always maintained a stupid hope that perhaps...perhaps he was wrong. Perhaps he wasn't hated or reviled. Perhaps he was capable of being...hell, even having a true friend at this point would be a stunner.

It was maintaining that feeling of hope, of hoping for love, that reminded him that he was, indeed, still human, still alive. He'd not been depleted of all humanity.

It was THAT tiny shred of innocence that still remained in himself for which he fought...and why he stepped toward the jacobs ladder that held the balance between dark and light in the room. He was holding onto it more than any other feeling or ideal in the world. He still, above all other things, hoped to be loved.

That was what he fought for.

That was what had driven him to Voldemort in the first place, promises in the right place, at the right time, with the right words...

Albus had used that against him, amplified that against him with this...something that was leeching out of him now. Was this was some kind of spell, or an enchantment? Had Albus used some kind of hold over his hope, his mind, his wants and feelings? It certainly wasn't above him to have manipulated and puppeteered such to his uses, like so many _other_ things in Severus' life...

Looking back, there wasn't much Albus hadn't had a hand in, to be honest. From his first day to his last as a student, and onwards during his professorship, every moment of his damned-spotted-constant-vigilance was twisted and tweaked by that warped wizard and yet...

Severus shook his head in confusion, remembering all the times he'd been disappointed, astounded, disgusted and disturbed by all the things he'd been asked to do that no one else 'could do'. Why else would he have had those emotions unless he'd somehow maintained some glimmer of hope for something better along the years?

Yes, he'd had hope. And he had a rage against that false hope built so cavalierly within him. That rage crept like ivy up his spine, eating at the mortar of his sedation as the room struggled between stages of lightness and dark.

He watched with mounting agitation as the bright and night on the floor battled like his wits at the crackling energy line and he realized...he finally realized with a glowing spark across his midnight eyes...HE was the jacob's ladder. Through years of personal deprivation and torture, whether consciously or subconsciously, he'd taken both ends of the war-spectrum in each hand and somehow gained complete and utter control. At the end, at the precipice, he was the one with the balance. At that last moment, he'd held _all_ the power. The war was his to play with as he'd chosen and it was all...it was all...

He shook his head in wonder...incredulity...shock.

It had been all insanity...madness...his breathing hitched in his chest and he swallowed, staring at the line on the floor as he approached it. One foot after the other, slowly stepping up to the sparkling line, he sighed, shuddered, as he realized it was a flat image on the cold floor beneath his feet.

Something shook deep within his core, something pacing, tight and coiled with an urge to reveal itself. Something willing to finally reveal itself for the driving rage behind that which was Severus Snape.

The image of Dumbledore flickered for a brief moment with that of something else, something too quick for the eye to see, but still enough to burn a moment's impression on his memory. He knew that image, that form, that darkness.

He'd lived with that nightmare long enough to know it very well.

And yet, it seemed that there had been a hesitation behind that flicker that hinted at another thought...behind them all.

Adrenaline pumped through his veins at the thought. It was time to be honest with himself, wasn't it? Time to let everything out, in a place that could apparently hold it all in. Where else could he do this? Where else could he be so completely free with himself?

Free.

Yes. He looked around the room and thought about what it was built for, what he'd seen and overheard. He could feel it pulling and tweaking his magic, this way and that. Prodding him, like a teacher or a parent...

Hmm. He smirked an ugly thought across his lips. Like a parent...right...

Darkness enveloped him and spread outward from where he stood, expanding along the floor and up the walls, swallowing the flickering bi-construct of Albus Dumbledore that now wavered with the super-imposed image of Lord Voldemort on the wall opposite him.

Voldemort and Dumbledore were indeed evil in his eyes, but they weren't the root of his _own_ evil, were they? They weren't to blame for everything...not _everything_...

Darkness ate the room, leaving Severus in a void so complete, he could barely feel the floor beneath his feet. He held his hands out, searching for the walls to orient himself, but promptly dropped his arms as a coldness filled his heart. The sound of hoarfrost crackling along a windowpane turned his head over his shoulder and a curious blue light, like winter and ice, turned him even colder. He slowly inched his eyes up to the ceiling, knowing what he'd see and reacting with a hand to try and shield himself from the pain.

Sure enough, his father's bloated, frozen face hung heavy and large on the wall's picture, peering down on him, defrosting and reanimating in a terrifying parody of magic.

Tobias Snape.

Bah! What a putrid, vile, unbearable farce of a father!

Nothing had been more satisfying or more guilt-bearing than to find out he'd drunkenly fallen in the river and drowned one winter. Yes, they'd been free, but then he'd borne the guilt of wishing it had happened and having to tell his mother. It had sent her off, soon after.

Useless lump of a mother that never protected him. Naive, stupid woman.

He sneered at the thought of her and Tobias sneered back, then laughed at him, his blue face crackling and growing pasty, like a poultice of milk and flour.

Memories flashed across his brain of hundreds of times...arguments, beatings, threats. By the time he was old enough to run off to Hogwarts, he was famished for any kind of affection, but he was devastated to learn that life would not let that happen.

It was always there, hanging over him, hiding behind every defeat, every loss, every poke and stab and kick to his character. Every time someone pointed and laughed behind his back, there was _him_ there, nodding in the back of his brain, knowing Severus _deserved_ it.

Anger growled, boiled, grew red and hot up from the void of his heart and he willed himself to glare fully up at the sight above him.

Multiple images of his father's face flipped, looming across the ceiling, sneering, bitter, disgusted, disappointed. Severus flinched, an ingrained reaction. Then, with confidence gained from murder, loss, death and war, he took a deep breath, lowered his arm and straightened his spine, looking at the image his Muggle father presented above him.

Dirty, drunk, disheveled, unkempt and unclean...ill-mannered...the best he could have ever expected from Tobias Snape was a lighter hand wielding the strop that wanted to beat the magic out of his son.

_Freak_.

_Devil's child._

_Whore's son._

He saw more of the strop or a belt than the good side of his father's hand and just knowing that his life could have been different if his mother had been strong, if she'd broken her wedding vows and used her magic against her husband, if she'd...

If he'd...

If...

He inhaled, sighed slowly, and listened to himself.

_If only_, and so many other things that would _never_ now happen. It wasn't worth wasting thought over, anymore. So much of his life was wasted effort, trying to gain one man's approval, then trying to make up for the damage wrought by him. Heaped upon that was the weight of damage done by other father figures, but this was the original. Tobias was the first, the only, the _most_ personal.

He was the first that wanted to kill Severus, the first that taught him of the worthlessness of his own life.

He gritted his teeth in resolution.

It was time to take that back.

He'd taken this life, all that pain, all that negativity and _used_ it. He'd made his life one of incredible purpose, one life that truly did matter. He, Severus Snape, had made a difference in this world – HIS world.

He'd done it and he'd done it on his own, with all the hatred and anger and pain everyone had ever given him, drowned him in, choked him on, shoved down his throat. He'd done it. HE'D done it!

He'd done it on his own, made his own choices, lived with them all, paid for them all and in the end it was all because of the things HE'D done that mattered. He saved the WORLD no thanks to them! He SAVED THE WORLD! He had all the power! For one _blinding moment_, he did!

He paced, glared up at his father's face and pounded his chest with the flat of his hand, throwing it wide to the room, "I DID! Me!" He curled his lips in a sneer. "And you were all _powerless_ to stop me!" He barked, laughed and turned in a circle with his arms thrown out. He threw his head back and howled, half-crazed, "ME!"

"_ME_!" The room grew brighter against his closed eyes and he hit a wall with an outstretched arm. "I did all of it without any of you! None of YOU!"

His hands braced his head as he doubled over in overwhelming anger, backed up against the wall. He then opened his mouth and yelled _without_ words, tearing his grief from his soul and carrying every pain his father ever visited upon him. He cried and spit and yelled, screamed, tore his voice into the room with as much volume as it could carry, knowing it was pointless, but doing it anyway...

He knew it was useless to do this, it had no value in the grand scheme of things or even in the small to scream like a madman, but ye gods it felt _good_. It felt so very good and cleansing to peel off the layers of soot and grime pounded into him with his father's boot heel and then refreshed by the Potters, Dumbledore and Voldemort decade after decade...so he just kept doing it for the cleansing pleasure of it.

After that was exhausted and his voice was broken...ages of ache dulling down into his brain...scenes shifted above him into things that meant differently now. He hiccoughed and sniffled back into the wall behind him, heedless what he started to see until he saw James Potter's smirk, then Dumbledore's stern gaze, Riddle's lying face, Lupin's weakness, Moody's paranoia, Malfoy's arrogance...

He hollered hoarsely as the images sped faster by, railed and hit the walls, blearily watched bullet-birds—growing ever smaller—escape from his impact every time. Decades of hatred and anger, frustration and injustice, disgust and rejection filled him to the brim and boiled out of his every pore, echoing into the room in bright flashes of color and shape. He was growing weaker in his dispelling anger, but it just kept coming, pouring out of him like a tap turned on full.

Riddle and Voldemort fought between themselves, then gave way to Lucius. Lucius' face grew haggard, old, afraid, withered. Severus felt his face grow cold with tears and mucus but just watched as the room showed him faces upon faces, spinning and flickering across the ceiling as he slid down the back corner. Hundreds, hundreds of faces...faces he'd hated, reviled, detested...all of them were playing out before him like a sick picture show until flickering briefly on Draco before coming to a screeching halt on Harry Potter.

Larger than life, staring down at him with confused arrogance out of Lily Evan's eyes.

He stared up at those eyes and they stared back at him. Not for the first time, perhaps, did it occur to him that if he was that much in love with Lily, that this boy could have been his. Perhaps that was why he'd been so hell-bent on protecting this child.

A spell came to mind that could determine a child's paternity.

If he'd known a spell that easily, surely he'd have cast it? What if he had? What if he'd already known? What if he'd forgotten? What if he hadn't? Why would Lily marry another man and have a child with him?

Well, that part wasn't too hard to imagine, but, still...fidelity charms.

Then again...she was Muggleborn. Depending on if it was a contractual fidelity clause or if it was a fidelity charm, it may not have held as tightly to her, especially in an affair with a half-blood.

He looked back up at the green eyes above him and saw the rest of the boy's face.

His heart fell a bit and remembered. James' face. That would be a pretty good reason never to even bother with a Paternity Charm.

He didn't know what bothered him more, having to go through this thought process "again", or that he was slightly disappointed in his logic. Was he really disheartened that Harry couldn't be his son? Or was it just that he hadn't had a son? Or that he'd not been that close to Lily when he'd apparently loved her so much?

So many questions and it was like watching a moving picture, and all the answers were from another script. It wasn't really himself anymore.

No, he wasn't in love with Lily anymore. Or rather, that wasn't a part of him anymore.

He tilted his head back against the corner and wiped his face against the sleeve of his borrowed jacket, rather disgusted at the mucus dribbling from his upper lip. He opened his eyes when the room changed.

It lightened, as if the sun had come out.

He opened his eyes to a view of Brown Eyes. Hermione. Smiling down on him from on high as if she were an angel.

His lips quirked in a small smile, then he snorted. This was ridiculous. His emotions were all over the place and his mind supplied him with a Judeo-Christian, vaguely heretical, iconic image of a woman young enough to be his daughter.

And gods help him but he couldn't help himself for wanting her to come back to him. She was peace to him, now. His breathing increased at the sight of her, his head rolled back on his neck and his mind finally succumbed to shock, the room going white as his adrenaline took over and gave him the respite he so desperately needed.

Severus Snape fell into a coma.

Just before he fell, however, a small part of his brain told another part that, 'Well, this isn't very different from before, now, is it?'

Something new, something light whispered back: 'Yes, it is. You're finally healing.'

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><p>AN: Yes, I crossover-referenced Macbeth and Mad-Eye Moody. *blinks* Why shouldn't I? Hmm. Cliffie? or not? I know what's going to happen, but what do you think will? ;) Love you all for your exemplary patience and major shouts of love to Hope Leslie HermnHarry for the wonderful smiles and proddings :D


	16. Chapter 16

A/N: well, this scene kind of jumped out at me and it's too cute to wait and post until I can build the rest of what I have planned. So you get short, but way earlier than anything I've posted in like, forever. Hope you like! And if you don't...meh. ;)

Of course, I own nothing, this is all copyrighted by their respective owners and I just attempt to dream. xoxo, Dena

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><p><span>Chapter 15<span>

The Leaky Cauldron wasn't particularly full that afternoon, so Ron pointed to a booth towards the back for them to carry on their conversation away from the prying ears of the bar. They both smiled at Hannah as she left with their orders.

"It's weird, coming here after everything, isn't it?"

Neville nodded as he looked around, noticing the lackluster, strained expressions on everyone's face and the music that was a tad too loud, as if it could force people into having a better time than they were. Everyone was still trying to get over the war, here, at this waypoint between the Muggle and Wizarding worlds.

Ron made some kind of gesture or noise that gathered his attention and asked what had apparently been on his mind when their conversation broke a few moments ago to enter the pub.

"So um, you mean to tell me that fancy room does all the work for you?"

Neville bunched his eyebrows together in confusion. Was Ron confused or being rude on purpose? Knowing Ron, he was most likely confused. His next question answered that,

"So what are _you_ there for?"

He tamped down a flicker of temper at that, sure now that his old roommate was just being obtuse. "Tch, no, Ron, it's more than that." He paused to gather the simplest explanation he usually reserved for non-medical staff and gestured with his hands openly, "You see, we've got to constantly drain any extra magic he's dumped into it's wards, and monitor the recordings. If we're not looking for it, the whole place could—" _What would Ron best imagine?_ "—could light up like a catherine wheel before you know it."

Neville sat back to gather if his old friend had understood any of what he'd said. It looked to be sinking in, but just for good measure, he continued, "He's always watched. He's damned lucky we got him when we did. Another day or two and I'd say he'd have killed himself, and probably blown up whatever building he was in at the time while doing it."

There. That got the ginger's attention.

His blue eyes stared Neville down in surprise, "Merlin."

He swallowed a bit of nervousness and kept looking at Ron's stricken face, "Or worse."

Red-blond eyebrows bunched over a long nose, "What's worse than that?"

What? How could he-? Neville sat still, staring his old roomie down in blank hurt. How could he forget something like that? How could Ron forget about his parents when they'd posted that picture up in the Room of Requirement, when Ron's own mother had killed his parent's tormenter, when so much had passed between them for so long...?

After a moment, Ron's face went white as a sheet as his memory caught up with his mouth. Regret was stamped across his face and Neville knew he knew what he'd meant.

Those blue eyes dropped to the shellacked tabletop and skittered to the floor. "Um." They flickered back up for a moment, then back to the floor in shame, "Sorry, mate."

He sighed, long and quietly. It was probably too much to ask that everyone remember his parent's fate when they were locked away in the JT. He'd not even talked of it, himself, until Dumbledore's Army. Not really.

His thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of their meals on the table, reminiscent of the Great Hall at Hogwarts. Ron's lunch looked good enough next to his own sausage roll, but they both just kind of stared at their food.

Which was really sort of saying something about Ron, if he still ate anything like he used to back at Hogwarts...

Perhaps he was expecting too much of someone he didn't see that much of, anymore. They were, after all, here to catch up. He watched Ron fiddle with the cork beermat and poke at the barmaid drawn on it, who was shaking her fist at him.

He smiled at the simple, boyish thing for Ron to do and offered an olive branch, shrugging one shoulder and lifting one side of his mouth in a small smile, "S'fine."

When the ginger looked up with hope on his face, Neville continued, but on a different tack, "You're partly right." He picked up his pastry and watched Ron tentatively start to dig in. "The room's magic shows him what he needs to see and sort of pokes him in the right direction for his own magic to...well, it's complicated, but the short way round is that it prods him to fix himself." He took a bite and a moment to chew, watching his old friend watch him in return as they ate. "It's overdone it a time or two, but not in the last decade, according to records."

"Huh."

Ron was eating a carrot. Which was oddly ironic, for a ginger to eat a carrot. Why was he thinking about that? What did it matter what Ron put in his mouth? Neville blushed and reached for his drink, choked as he swallowed, and sputtered into his napkin.

"You all right?"

He wheezed up over the serviette, "Yeah. Mm-Hmm."

Ron chewed his food a bit with a strange look on his face, like he was trying to broach something difficult, so what he said next threw Neville a bit, "So, you...uhm, like your sandwich?"

He knew his face was screwed into the shape of confusion, but kept up with the direction of conversation, "Yeah, s'pretty good. You?"

"Mmm."

Neville started to ask what he really meant to say, when Ron continued,

"So...when Hermione was in there... with Snape..."

Neville's head shifted to the right, prompting him to continue, not really liking where this was going, "Yeah?"

Ron took a bite out of his pickle, Neville took another drink, and after a moment, the redhead finally continued, "Did the room... y'know?"

He let out his held breath in a slow sigh of disappointment. Was that what this was all about? Ron was still on about Hermione? Bloody—he thought that was over. Hell, he'd probably not even come on this lunch if he thought this is what Ron wanted to talk about.

H-uh. Not that he really could hope for talking about anything really promising, but even some friendly conversation outside the scope of medicine was welcoming, these days. _Dammit_. Dejected, he looked out to the bar and shifted his jaw, trying to reign in his disappointment that obviously had nothing to do with Ron.

He let slip a silent huff of mirthless laughter and asked the question that the other man was alluding to, "Did the room make them do it, you mean?"

A look was glinting in those blue eyes he couldn't quite read, something hesitant and tentative. Regardless, he answered in the affirmative, "Right."

"What do you think? Had they been acting like that near each other before?"

He'd caught Ron mid-sip of his ale, "Mmm?" he wiped the foam off his lips, "What, like snogging and all? I think I would have noticed that. Although I did catch her dribbling on his foot yesterday morning."

So distracted was he by the realization that he was actually following the path of Ron's fingers across his mouth, Neville didn't fully understand what he was hearing. Hermione drooled on Snape's foot? How? "P-pardon?" And damned if his old stutter didn't take a stupid moment to show up again. He swallowed to calm his mouth, then narrowed his eyes across the table.

A look passed between them where Ron, once again, completely mistook Neville's confusion—albeit this time he was somewhat grateful—and tried to explain, "Oh, it's just this thing she did when we—" He looked up again and finally noticed the vaguely horrified expression on Neville's face. His mouth floundered a bit before he apparently decided to change tack, "Um...well. What about you?"

Ron ran his fingers through his hair, then grabbed a piece of cheese and shoved it into a bit of bread, bringing it up to his mouth to chomp down on before looking up at Neville's lack of response.

They stared blankly at each other while Ron chewed, but Neville finally asked in a testy tone, "_What_?"

Ron's eyebrows dropped as he shoved his mouthful of food to the right and spoke around it, "Have you been in there?"

Several colorful profanities ran through his head. For a moment there, he could have sworn Ron was asking him if he'd had a go at Hermione. "Ye-I mean, yeah...sure. I have to check on patients in there all the time."

He finished chewing on his cheese and swallowed before asking his next question with an earnest expression on his face, "Do you ever get weird urges to do things when you're in there?"

Neville could feel his face flush in embarrassment and shame. He'd tried the room out by himself that one time, that one lonely night, just to see... but that was nothing! He quickly answered in the negative, "Of course not! That's unethical!"

Ron looked over his shoulder at the room to see if anyone was paying attention to Neville's outburst, then leaned over the table with a conspiratorial smirk, "Keep your knickers on, Nev, I was asking academically. Now, what about alone? Have you ever been in that room by yourself?"

And that was entirely too close to anything he wanted to admit, "What does that have to do with anything?"

Ron sat back with a broader smirk and grabbed an apple slice to munch on, "Oh, I think that's a big 'yes', and it has a lot to do with it. If the room is manipulating your own desires and needs is one thing, but if it's catering to just the patient is another." He swallowed and pointed with the remnant of apple slice, "What if the patient was affected with Priapism?"

This conversation was declining into a sad state, rapidly, and there seemed to be nothing he could do about it. He moaned, dropping his head into his hands as his elbows bracketed the plate before him, "Oh, _Merlin_, not that old joke."

Like a dog with a bone, Ron persisted, "No, no, seriously, what if he was? If you walked into that room, what would that room do? Would it make you do it with him or would it make you _want_ to do it with him, or would it kick you out if you didn't want it at all?"

Neville stared at Ron, openmouthed. How did he—was he actually implying—when—who—?

The redhead finished his stunning line of questions with a triumphant grin, "I think that's a really important question."

He just stared, blinked, really. He could feel the blood rushing to his face. The question really was: Would Ron be this clever to try and out Neville's sexuality, or would he be this thick and juvenile about something as serious as the HyPAC?

When Neville didn't immediately respond and Ron did a few grunts of satisfaction that he'd apparently won some kind of point in the discussion, he realized that despite being lauded as a major strategist in their House during school, Ron could be quite thick sometimes.

He almost smiled. It was kind of—Neville blushed harder and dove into his correction, "First off, Ron, the room can be switched off for when medical professionals enter and will not interfere against the will of any individual." He cleared his throat and continued, "Secondly, Priapism doesn't exist in the magical world and even if it did, we wouldn't treat such a common malady such as that with such an expensive programme as the Hyper-Pensieve Adjustment Chamber."

"Oh, come on-"

He sped over his table mate's disparaging remarks, not quite sure what was coming out of his mouth, but saying it anyway, "And further more, that is a highly unethical question to ask me, Ron." His heartbeat was rapping madly in his chest, pounding in his ears as he leaned over the table. "I don't know how you found out, but you could do to keep your voice down, you know. It's not like I've come out or anything so I'd appreciate it if you didn't do it for me in one of the most public places in Wizarding England."

Neville sat back in his seat, his face aflame and prickling. Then he realized what exactly he'd said.

_Oh, shite._

_Oh, bugger._

_Oh, shite._

He said it.

They stared at each other with gaping, stunned expressions. His breathing sped up and he could feel his composure slipping by the second. He needed to get out of here, and fast.

He grabbed his coat and scarf, shifting out of the booth. "I'll just go. Have a good lunch."

A hand shot out and held his arm, "Wait, Wait!" He gritted his teeth and looked down to his side to see bright blue eyes beseeching his brown ones. "Neville. I swear, I didn't know!" He affirmed again at Neville's confused expression, "I didn't! Sit down. Please?" Ron gestured back to the booth seat recently vacated and he had no idea why, but there was something in the hang-dog expression on his face that made him retake his seat. "That was a coincidence, I'm sorry. I didn't know you'd got caught shagging someone in the... whatever you called it."

Neville stilled with a shock, staring at Ron with incredulity and answering him almost absentmindedly, "HyPAC...though most people call it the Party Cell, and I didn't get caught shagging anyone."

Ron continued to look at him, dumbfounded, and Neville..._well, in for a knut_... "I've never shagged anyone at all, Ron. I think I'm gay."

He could literally see the gears churning inside Ron's head as each syllable went half-spoken in shock, "Wha-er-um. Whu...?"

Just the fact that the ginger hadn't up an run off by now or started yelling and screaming was promising enough, but he would need more to drink to ease off the edge of the conversation to come,

"Yeah, that about sums it up. Let's have another round, yeah? _Hannah_?"

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><p>AN: Hang-dog expression. I looked it up, it's from 1677, so yeah, it's older than America and an English expression. I'd say I could use it. Funny how I always thought it was Southern.

The Leaky Cauldron. It always struck me that this one place was right on the edge of Muggle and Wizarding Britain and everyone always seemed so worn and strained.

Neville's eyes. Looked it up. Nothing is listed as his actual eye color, regardless of the devastating blue eyes of the actor that plays him on screen. I wanted him to have brown eyes because JKR once would have named him Pupp instead of Longbottom. ;) (hplexicon cite)

I made a small correction on Ron's lunch with special thanks to Aberlioness for correcting me! I'd made a bit of a mistake on a Ploughman's Lunch definition. Since I can't find a proper definition of what I want Ron to eat, he's just having "lunch". ;) I really really really wanted him to eat that carrot :D


	17. Chapter 17

A/N: another shorty, and I'm sorry, but no SS/HG action here, but this scene has been riding my ass for over a year. I've known I was going to write this for that long and it's been my major writing block for at least half that. So, yeah. I'm happy to have it written. I hope you still like me after this one... xoxo Dena

disclaimer: JKR owns it all, I only dream.

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><p>Chapter 16<p>

Apparating into the foyer, Hermione let herself into Grimmauld Place with her own set of keys and called out to anyone available, "Hello-o?"

The house seemed rather quiet, save for the muted sound of Teddy's crying from the general direction of the kitchen. Remus would be at home, at least, but perhaps Harry and Tonks as well...Huh. Well, she might as well look around to see who was there before heading towards the obvious sound of distress down the hall.

She looked around the entry hall and peeked into the parlor. Nothing and no-one. She sighed and thought perhaps it was a bit too easy to have found everyone right away, sitting peacefully and chatting about the day when it was much more likely they would have received papers from the Ministry like she had and be talking rather heatedly about them. Letting a breath of air out of her mouth through closed lips, she pressed forward with determination to find out just how bad things were, here.

Following the baby's cries into the kitchen, she opened the door to Tonks trying to feed a very upset little boy...but not much else. Kreacher looked over his shoulder at her from his position on the floor, standing underneath the high chair, with utmost disdain...what was that look for?

Her eyebrows bunched together and she sought the older witch's eyes. That was nothing doing, with her son having a full out temper tantrum, throwing food just about everywhere, so she cleared her throat and called out, "I'm sorry, but are any of the boys here?"

Tonks looked up in surprise, as if she were the last person she'd expect to see...odd...then wiped a new splat of orange goo off her face. "Upstairs, library, but—"

"Thanks!" She made to run quickly away from that growing fiasco and only vaguely heard Nymphadora trying to call her back. There was no way in hell she'd go back to that. She would much rather deal with Ministry business than a Teddy Tantrum.

Flying up the stairs, she wondered over what could have them in the library as they weren't working on a case at this point, then realized that's where they would be should Remus get a summons. Stupid, she should have gone there first! Oh Lord, what'll happen now? She knew this was going to hurt them, she just knew it! He said Kingsley would take care of it, but she just knew—

As she neared the doorway, it was cracked open just a tad, but that was hardly necessary as the next words were bitten off at top volume:

"-supposed to be the brightest witch of her age!"

Well that stopped her in her tracks. Wasn't that about her? She blinked. Should she walk in and ask, or stop and listen, wait and see what was said? Perhaps she was taking things out of context?

"Well, obviously something's stopping her from thinking straight, right now. I can't have her endangering my family like this." Hermione's heart nearly stopped. That was Harry's voice! Endangering his family? How dare—what did he—how could—? "Five, Remus. Five bloody trials I have to stand witness at."

Wha-at? Her mouth dropped open in shock. Five? She missed what Remus said next trying to wrap her mind around this new development.

"I don't know how to tell her. I mean, she's like my sister. I can't just kick her out. Where's she going to go?"

Go? What? Harry wanted to kick her out? Her eyes pricked with tears and her face filled with the heat of betrayal. _That was it_. She needed to be in there, defending herself and finding out just what was really going on.

At that, she sailed into the room and confronted the situation like the Gryffindor she was supposed to be. Both men were standing, facing each other in the middle of the room and turned in surprise to face her as she barged in.

She straightened her shoulders and composed her face, swallowing any tears before they leaked out. "I can't believe what I'm hearing. I come rushing home to find out if either of you have received summons as well but find you plotting my removal? What's going on, here?"

She looked from Harry to Remus and both looked somewhere between sheepish and angry but neither were truly looking her in the face.

Hermione shook her head with a soft expulsion of breath, "I don't understand. What have I done that's so horrible?" She looked to Remus, who finally met her eyes. "This morning, you thought I was being ridiculous for worrying so much. What made such a difference?"

He looked about to tell her, then paper crackled as he gripped the pages in his hand more tightly and paced away towards the fireplace, breathing heavily through his nose as though to rein in his temper.

She looked from that to Harry, who was staring at her with a hard look, "Tell me what's going on?"

Harry didn't seem to be giving an inch, but then finally ground out, "They're not just summoning him on the thing with Snape."

Hermione blinked. Well, what else could they call Remus in—? "Oh, no. No, not that."

"Yes, _that_." Remus finally turned and nearly spat his words over his shoulder. "And it's because of sheep! Apparently the only thing they can call me up on is that I'm supposed to have a sheep farm come a full moon. Who keeps a sheep farm in London, I ask you?" He threw his hands up and continued pacing.

She shook her head, still confused as to how that related to her, "What does—?"

"To keep the creature contained in a non-human environment and within so much particular space."

Well, that wasn't what she'd asked, but still, "What?"

"It's a little known law and one that's never been enforced to my knowledge, especially since Werewolves are unable to maintain gainful employment. So because I don't have access to sheep every month, I will most likely have to go to Azkaban. If they even let me stay _there_."

"But what does that have to—"

Harry finally interjected with a rather nasty bite, "Well, they wouldn't have looked into Remus' status at all if none of this crap with Snape had come up, would they?"

Hermione was surprised at how sharp Harry was talking to her. His entire demeanor was bordering on rude, "Excuse me?"

He gestured towards her, "You heard me."

She faced off to him with hands to her hips, "No, I don't think I did hear you right. I've done nothing wrong." Looking back and forth between them, she started to feel cornered, "This is what we do."

Harry snorted darkly, "That's a laugh. You've screwed up this whole Snape operation from Day-One."

She was shocked, "_Day-One?" _Why hadn't anyone mentioned this before if she was crapping out so horribly? Where was this coming from? She shook her head in stunned confusion, "Who are you people? I thought you were my friends?"

Gesturing animatedly, Harry continued his unexpected attack, "Friends protect each other, Hermione. Friends don't run off and do whatever the hell they please on a lark without consideration for anyone else—"

Now wait a minute! "Oh that's rich, coming from you, Mister-Save-Everyone. Shall I start from Year One?"

"That's right, let's bring that up, again."

"I will! And I'll keep bringing it up until you see that we're not all perfect, Harry!" How could he bring this up again? "I can't be perfect!" She thought he understood... "I can't eat when you want me to, I can't sleep when you want me to, and I damn sure can't seem to prescribe to whatever this...this course of action is that you set aside for me to have done, because I have no idea what the hell I did wrong!" She finished with a pleading gesture, nearly yelling at him, frustrated to have to defend herself at nothing.

Remus spoke quietly from behind her, "Do you still have the trunk?"

His voice sent a tremor up her spine, especially since his words reminded her of their conversation this morning. She turned towards him and asked, "What?"

He repeated with emphasis, "Do. You. Still have Snape's trunk?"

She shook her head, still reeling from Harry's attack, now compounded by the effects of Remus' censorious tone, "Why can't you just let me handle Severus' case my way?"

Harry chastised from the other direction, "Hermione. Answer Remus."

She looked between them, "I—I forgot to give it to him." At their disappointed looks, she continued on in her defense, "I got the summons and came over, _worried_ about _you_!"

Remus spoke lowly, cutting his eyes at her as if he could barely look at her, "You should have given it to him first thing."

Harry flipped his hands at her and stalked off, "You should have given it to him two days ago."

Remus rejoined, "We should have taken him to St. Mungo's two days ago."

And Harry answered, "We would still have Sirius' garden out back if we had."

That was just about enough of this! "Oh, for God's sake, here!" She rummaged through her denim pocket and pulled out the miniaturized trunk, stalking over to Harry, grabbing his hand and slapping it into his palm, growling at him, "If I'm so horribly inept, give it to him yourself!"

He fisted the trunk and pointed at her, "That's not the point, Hermione!"

This was where her Gryffindor bravado kicked in. She cocked back her head, crossed her arms and retorted, "Oh? Then what is?"

His arms flew wide, "You! You're the point!" One hand scrubbed through his messy black hair and for a moment, Hermione was reminded of her best friend, again. He looked back out at her from beneath that fringe with pained green eyes, "Remus is all I have left of my parents, Hermione. You've just endangered that because of Snape."

Her entire world went still and silent. She stared at him, waiting for him to clarify, to take back what he said, to include her, to fix it...something.

But he didn't. Her eyes sparkled in the firelight as they looked back and forth between his. He just stood there, waiting for her to respond, so she did in a quiet, emotional voice, "Don't I count for family, Harry?"

His hands dropped to his sides in defeat, his eyes pleading, "It's not that..."

Hermione fairly growled over him, "I've known you longer than Remus."

He looked between her and the man in question, who was standing stiffly, watching them, waiting for Harry's reply, "Not really—"

She tilted her head and pressed on, "Yes, really! Cumulatively, I've known you far longer than Remus." _What about school, what about the Forest of Dean, what about bloody Voldemort?_ "We've been through everything together, Harry! I've been with you through every single thing! Even when Ron ran out on us, who was there!? _Who_?"

She breathed heavily through her nose, staring at him, waiting for a reply. He said nothing, only looked back, helplessly.

Shaking her head, a thought formed, taking seed, "Why are you doing this? Is it Severus?" A suspicious light went on in Harry's eyes and she stepped forward, "I thought he was the 'bravest man you ever knew'? Was that only when you thought he was _dead_? He's only good if he's _gone_?" She finished by looking him up and down with disgust.

Both men reached towards her, "Hermione—"

She flinched back and sneered, "So this is how you repay the _two people_ who have done the absolute most for you..." She looked from one to the other and their shocked faces. Not receiving a response, she continued tack, "Okay. Okay." She nodded, as if to agree with herself. "I'll just see myself out, then, shall I?"

Moving quickly, she walked around the sofa towards the double doors.

Harry stumbled over a, "What?" just as she reached for the handles.

She stopped and stared at the glazed and crackled paint on the wooden door in front of her. "You obviously want me to go."

"Not immediately, you don't have anywhere else to go."

Hermione looked over her shoulder in slight surprise. She'd known that's what they wanted by now, but it still came as a shock for Harry to flat out say it. The look on his face said he felt the same way.

Fine. If that was what they wanted, then they should have it. Pain and anger culminated in the darkest sneer she'd ever felt fall over her face, "So far as you think." She ripped open the door.

Harry called out after her, "No, tell me where you're going."

The nerve! She called back over her shoulder, still hanging onto the doorknob, "Fat chance, that! I'll owl for my things in the morning."

Her former best friend's face whitened as a final thought crossed it, "Wait, Hermione...the Wizengamot."

Her jaw set into a dark smile as she knew they finally understood the corner they'd backed themselves into. "Well, perhaps you should have thought of that before kicking me out."

At that, she stalked out and slammed the door behind her. A picture frame fell on the floor and muttered a random obscenity at the affront.

"Jesus." Harry scraped his hand through his messy hair again and let out a low sigh of disbelief.

Remus flopped down onto the sofa. "You can say that again."

"Where do you think she's going?"

"Probably her parent's house. She never sold it."

Harry joined him. "What? I didn't know that."

"It never came up, but it's in her financials."

The younger man gripped his head in his hands and groaned, "Mmmngh-God, I bolloxed that up!" Looking up at Remus as the older man stood with a sigh, he asked, "Should we follow her?"

Remus looked back incredulously, "Are you mad? I spent twenty minutes dismantling her wards this morning and she probably knows as many hexes as _I _do." After a moments thought, he continued, "Give her a few days to calm down and then we can figure out a way to talk to her."

They were quiet for a bit, with Remus looking into the fire, still gripping his papers and Harry slumping on the sofa, "Was I wrong with what I said?"

"We all said things regrettable, Harry. And we all said some truths. The hard part will be deciphering which is which and then living with them."

Harry stood up and beseeched his former teacher, "Speaking of, are you sure you won't let me buy you a sheep farm? You know I can afford it."

Remus glared at him, "Harry, we've been through this. What kind of—" At that, he hissed and threw his summons in the fire and stalked out the library door.

Harry slid his hand into his back pocket, knowing what the rest of the sentence was supposed to be from their previous argument. What kind of role model would he be to his son if he just took hand outs and never resolved this issue...

He watched Remus' summons flip out of the fire and smooth itself out, the protective charms on it correcting any damage wrought by the flames. This was going to be a long night and it was only afternoon. He probably needed to speak to Ginny about this.

Damn. And she would most likely flay him alive for it, too. Fuck.

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><p>AN: *ducks and runs*


	18. Chapter 18

A/N: This slows the pace a bit, but I feel it's necessary. At the very least, it answers questions I'm not sure many other people have tried to approach...

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><p><strong><span>Chapter 17<span>**

Hermione slammed the door to Grimmauld Place on a questioning call from Tonks. There was no way she could explain herself or the situation, now. Better to leave that to the arses left behind.

Her heart shuddered in the cage of her chest and she paused halfway down the slate steps from what had been her home for the past two years. Looking over her shoulder, she braced herself to look up at the glimmering windows of the aging facade.

She scanned every window. Every one. Nothing.

She winced. Oh, that hurt.

No one was there, looking to see where she went, watching her leave, caring at all what happened to her...

Her eyes watered, stung when she tried to hold the tears in. Her throat burned from the ache of it but finally, she swallowed it down, looked at the last two steps before her, and walked away.

She'd given up her life, her family, her _parents_, even her _education_ for Harry and the one time she wanted to do something beyond his own goals, he claimed she'd betrayed him?

Fuck that.

If he was blind to all of that and wanted to exclude her from his claim of family, he could go to hell for all she cared.

She felt more than heard the Fidelius Charm wipe Grimmauld Place away from view and rather thought it might be the last time she'd see it, herself. Hermione went to take one last look around the Park and remembered those past few nights spent coaxing Severus back from the deep well of isolation. After a few minutes, she let go the iron bars that were cold beneath her hands and a wind blew right up the street, promising more rain this evening.

Fine.

She folded her arms around her body tightly and kept walking, heedless of the river of tears tracking down her face.

/

Hermione rather quickly made her way to Euston Station. It seemed a logical thing to revert to her Muggle heritage when everything Wizarding was going to pot. She found the queue easily enough from memory...it really hadn't been as hard as she thought it might be to see the words 'Golders Green' or 'Brent Cross'. Considering the car was at home and Golders Green was closer, that had been an easy choice, really. She settled herself into the train and smiled at the well-dressed woman she'd sat beside who'd ignored her for some small flip phone device she was poking at with a stylus.

Then she pulled out another phone and called someone from it. Hmm. So perhaps the other was an organizer? Why couldn't they combine the two?

She thought back to her study charts and charmed planners from Hogwarts and how that had overflowed into her bookkeeping once she'd undertaken the Potter Foundation. Of course, that reminded her of Harry and their argument and why she was currently riding Muggle transport to her parents' Muggle house in a Muggle suburb miles away from where she thought was home.

Honestly this would have been the only way she would have forced herself to go back _there_, of all places...at least without her parents in a triumphant return.

Sighing dejectedly, she settled deeper into her seat to wait out the ten-or-so stops until her station. People got on and off, including the woman at her side, at a frenzied pace, always moving, talking, doing something. She just sat there, feeling foolish. She really should have Apparated, but she was afraid she didn't remember what exactly the inside of her Mum's living room looked like after two years and maybe the housekeeper was there...

Everyone was playing with some kind of device or talking with a friend or even reading and she was just...well now at least she could look out the window unobstructed since shifting over. That was something to do, wasn't it?

When did she ever not have something to do? When did she ever _not_ have someone to talk to?

Her forehead came up against the cold glass as she thought, rather dejectedly: _Now_.

At Grimmauld, with the Foundation, she'd always had something to fiddle with, something to expand her mind with, something to think about or do or see or somewhere to be...

As a Muggle...she looked around the compartment and saw how much she really wasn't like _them_ anymore. No one even wanted to occupy the open seat beside her and there were people standing.

Shifting with the stop, she turned her head further into the glass and watched everyone on the stand, moving like an angry hive. That repeated itself several more times and the hive became smaller and smaller until it finally became her turn.

People actually moved out of her way when she went to step off the train. Horrified that she looked that badly, she made a beeline for the nearest loo and a mirror, promptly exclaiming in dismay.

"Oh, God, now that just tops the day, doesn't it? I've been going everywhere looking like Nancy Vicious' preppy niece. Ugh." She placed her hands on top of her impossibly frizzy hair and was immediately shocked from static electricity, "ow." Trailing her fingers through that mess as best she could, she went up to the wall mounted sinks and turned the tap on, swiping her wet fingers at the mascara all over her face and the collar of her shirt. It just smeared worse, so she reached for a towelette...which was no where to be seen. Everything was air dry with automatic blowers. "Fantastic."

Grabbing some off the bog roll would have to do. She put some soap on it and wiped as best she could until it was only a slightly gray tinge on her cheeks instead of something out of a horror movie. "That is the _last_ time I use Muggle cosmetics. A charm would never run like that."

She paused, holding her hand over the bin as she threw away the last of the flimsy, cheap bog paper and realized exactly what she had said. Part of the reason she'd been using Muggle cosmetics was to hang on to her heritage...and now look where she was.

"God, what irony." Staring disbelievingly into the mirror before her, she turned the tap on one more time, got a mouthful of chlorinated water (_ugh_) and spat it out. She straightened her jumper and smoothed her fingers down the back of her trousers, then once more over her impossible hair.

It was time to go home, with or without her parents.

She pushed the door open and made it nearly through the lobby of the station before another thought hit her rather hard. Would Harry have given her the same grief when she went to find her parents, as well? Her brow furrowed. Perhaps not. It wouldn't endanger Remus in any way and would only affect him so much as her being out of the country and not running his books.

Ha. Good luck on them trying to play with that on their own, now. Not a one of them had ever taken an interest in budgeting. Harry tended to play too fast and loose with his money. Not that he'd even bother looking for at least a month...

And that was something that had always irked her. She resumed walking as a posh couple glared their snub-nosed way around her standing in the middle of the room. Having the funds and being charitable was one thing, but being irresponsibly loose with it was another thing entirely.

She shook her head and pushed out the glass door of the station, turning slightly south in hopes of catching a taxi on the main road. The snobby couple were talking to a brightly tanned man with skin much to tight in a Porsche convertible. They all stopped to stare at her.

"Haven't you ever seen anyone have a bad day, before?" She stopped just shy of giving them a two-finger salute, and was immediately glad she had when a man of the cloth cleared his throat beside her.

She turned to see his black clothing with a pang of sadness, reminded instantly of Severus and how wonderful the day had started. Looking up to the white-haired, impeccably pressed and dressed man, she smiled weakly.

He smiled back with warmth. "You can't blame them for seeing something out of place and wondering about it. Not everyone remembers when this was a community for all."

Hermione blinked at him, realization dawning that this man would remember her and her parents coming to sermons every Sunday when she was a child and her parents' continued attendance afterwards. She swallowed and looked him in the eyes.

"F-father..."

"You do seem a bit out of sorts, my dear. I'm afraid I haven't long before I've a train to catch, but are you and your parents well? I've missed them at sermon these past two years."

She blinked again, shocked, wondering how many people remembered her, remembered her family. She'd not been back to the house since Disapparating off to fight Voldemort, and only had the Trust set up a caretaker for the house and grounds. Had something happened to it? She needed to get there more urgently, now.

That thought shored up her mind to think more clearly and respond to Father Clarke and his inquiry, if only just, "Um...yes. I've only come back to prepare the house for their return in a few months time."

"Oh, lovely. Jesse and Marta have taken good care of it while they've been on holiday, so don't fret about that. Shall I see you this weekend? Perhaps your own family?"

"I-I-I'll see you then, Father. Good afternoon."

He chuckled. "Good afternoon." His hand waved like a pale, elegant flag as he slipped through the glass doors of the quiet lobby of Golders Green Station.

She hissed through her teeth, "Oh, God, what have I done? How many people remember them? Me?" She remembered going to the local girls' grammar school before Hogwarts, and Father Clarke's sermons, she remembered communion and baptism...she remembered going to the tennis courts with Mummy and getting completely trounced by Elsie Rankle and her mother and her bragging about it all over school for the next month. So what if it had been her first time playing the game _ever?_ Elsie had had lessons since she was three.

Of course she did. They all had. Hermione's parents had elected for her to spend her time reading and learning whenever she was at home instead of spending any time with sports or extra curricular activities. They hadn't needed it, so why should she? Of course, there was also the barest edge of a struggle with money before Mummy came into her inheritance, but that had just taught them all to economize.

She took a cleansing breath and reorientated herself.

Their practice would have been right around the corner, too. And NO, she WAS NOT going to walk by there. It was in the completely wrong direction.

And there were absolutely no taxis to be seen.

Bugger all, it would suit her to walk, then. It was only a mile or so. She took a deep breath and started down the north street, tilting her head up and straightening her back for the long walk home.

After all, the only way to belong somewhere was to act like it, Mum always said.

/

"Just...just over the next bit..." _huff, huff _ "Oh, God, am I out of shape," One would think that spending a year camping on the run would instill a permanent sense of fitness, but apparently not. So much for just over a mile, it felt like she'd been walking for over an hour. There were way too many people about at this time of day to even attempt a Tempus charm and other than the sun, she could only guess it was late afternoon. Everyone stared at her as she walked by, as if she were some sort of vagrant they needed to call the police for. Actually, she thought someone might have, for wasn't that a patrol car rounding the corner down at the end of the drive?

She sighed and kept walking. If they approached her, she had every right to be here as anyone else. England was still a free country and by God, she'd helped fight for that. Of course, no one here knew that. Or had even seen her since she was eleven.

She sighed again as the car seemed to be pacing her. She could hear the rubber from the wheels grinding into the street slightly behind her.

"Excuse me? Miss?"

Oh—_huff_—Lovely. She stopped walking and took a calming breath, hoping that she could explain her situation properly to—she turned—ah, of course—the police officer leaning out his window at her.

She smiled as best she could and offered, "Good afternoon, officer, how may I help you?"

Manners obviously took him aback since he'd not been expecting them, of all things, but he pressed on, nonetheless, "One of the residents claims there is a vagrant walking the streets of the neighborhood. You, uh, wouldn't know of anything about that, would you?"

She almost laughed at the roundabout accusation. The officer was confused, trying to be polite and stern at the same time, which just came out bewildered. Perhaps he could help her after all.

"Actually, I'm rather afraid they're talking about me. You see, I've had the most horrendous day and my parents' house is just up the lane, here. I have the key and I can show you my license, to prove who I am. I know I look a fright."

He blinked.

She added a few leftover tears for his benefit, "Bad breakup and Mummy's on holiday. I have no where else to go."

There. That should be sufficiently whinging and helpless for this neighborhood to be believable. She stood there, wibbling while he decided to believe her or not. And, to her horror, it wasn't too far from the truth...

He was conversing with someone over his radio about her and it sounded favorable. She knew she had him when he said it was a domestic dispute and signed off. She bit her lips and waited for him to look back at her.

He did. "Care for a lift? As long as I can see that license you've got first."

"Oh, yes sir! Thank you, sir!" She pulled out her wallet and was slightly afraid that he was conning her back just to get her in the car to take her away. Her hand shook as she handed the plastic card to him, thankful that she'd kept it current, just in case.

Well, whatever else case would needs be other than this?

He looked the card over, tilted it about and held it up to the light, looking from the image to her and back again. She waited on the spines of her feet, hands clasped in front of her until he acceded, "All right," he handed it back to her, "hop in, but don't tell anyone I let you ride in the front, yeah?"

"I won't! I promise! Oh, you're an angel! A true angel!"

/

Turned out he'd had an ulterior motive, or two. As they pulled up in her parents drive, she was too distracted by finally seeing the house to notice him pulling out a cellular phone to call someone.

"Marta? Yeah, it's me. Mind coming out for a moment? I've got someone claiming to be Hermione Granger. Thanks."

Her head had whipped around to look at him in panic. She'd never actually met the housekeeper that had been assigned by the Trust and all her pictures had been wiped. How had she been so trusting?

The police officer just looked back at her calmly, then over her shoulder as the front door made a sound. She turned in horror, just knowing her next trip would be to jail for impersonating herself...which did and didn't exist...

The woman was about her mother's age and slightly familiar, with a short, blonde bob and a simple cardigan over a blouse and trousers in soft colors. The similarities between this woman and her mother was somewhat painful and something ticked away in the back of her brain that something was slightly off.

As soon as their eyes met, a spark of familiarity flared in Marta's eyes and she rushed forward to open the patrol car door. The officer urgently got out on the other side and ran around to meet her,

"Wait a minute, Marta, you have to be sure." He looked from one to the other and leaned in to the older woman, away from Hermione. "This could put you out of a job," he said lowly.

She looked back up at him with a strange, haunted look, "I have to do this. I showed you the pictures."

"Exactly. She's not in them. I told you, I don't remember them having any kids."

Hermione's adrenaline level spiked tenfold and her heart beat in her chest. What had she done? How could she have been so ignorant? The Trust had sent someone to care for the house that had remembered her and apparently times when some of the pictures had been taken. Her mind reeled with the implications this could have on the interrogation coming up. She was already being called up for violating the Statute of Secrecy. Were Aurors on their way now?

Her breathing accelerated. She'd not done any magic. How could she explain this a Muggle way that would get her out of this one? Of course the officer wouldn't remember her, he was younger by several years and a boy. They would have gone to different schools at the very least and her parents always kept her at home.

Before she could think of a sufficient answer for the pictures, Marta addressed her directly. "Miss? Could you answer a question for me?"

Her mouth went dry. "I'll try."

The blonde's attempt at a smile faltered at that. Yes, well, she'd been taken down several notches since she was an arrogant, inquisitive little eleven-year-old who'd answer any question within a given radius.

Regardless, Marta asked her question, "My daughter went to school with Hermione—you—and one balmy weekend we played tennis—mother/daughter doubles. Hermione and her mother lost and my daughter was most ungracious for quite some time afterwards. What was her name?"

Her feet hit the bricks of the parking court with a thud, all astonishment. Before her shock could render her completely speechless, she managed to croak out, "E-Elsie. Elsie Rankle."

Marta smirked at the police officer with triumph and he shrugged, opening the car door for her further. "No hard feelings, Miss. Just doing my duty."

"Um, no, none. I understand. Thank you."

At that, she let Marta lead her into her home.

/

"You see? Everything's as they left it before going on that sudden holiday." Marta stopped in her procession to the kitchen to look at Hermione assessingly. "Are they due back soon?"

Hermione was so stuck in forming her response just right that Marta continued, "It's just, ever since Randolph divorced me, I've...I've rather enjoyed staying here. I feel like I still belong, even if everyone still gives me that pitying look that tells me he brought _her_ to the last club supper instead of me."

At Hermione's mute response, which she was sure looked slightly and uncontrollably horrified, Marta just bit her lips and said, "I'm sorry. You look like you could use a cup of tea."

Her blurted response of "Please" was met with an almost watery smile.

/

They sat in silence, sipping their tea. Hermione was reminiscing over the electric kettle when Marta spoke up again.

"May I ask?"

"About my parents coming back?"

"Mm. That, too."

"What else, then?"

"The photographs. You're not in any of them."

"I...I took the ones that had me in them. I've got them at my flat in G-Gordon Square." Jesus, let that one hold up. It was weak at best. Hermione breathed a surreptitious sigh of relief when Marta seemed to let that one slide.

"And your parents?"

She smiled quickly, happy to jump subjects. "I hope to welcome them back in about a month or so."

"Ah."

"Not that you're being forced to leave. I'm sure they're not used to taking care of such a large house now and would want someone—"

Marta gave her a sharp glance, "I used to meet them at the supper club, dear. It would be more than awkward."

Hermione's tone turned pleading, remembering the officer's words about her losing her job. "Not to me, it isn't. And they're not like that, I'm sure you remember. They'd treat you as more of a family member than an employee."

"Oh, I don't think I need to worry about that."

She took a sip of her tea, "Mm?"

Marta sighed and started becoming something a bit different in front of her. Something slightly less well-together and a little more delicate. "I sometimes wonder...if my capability has become my liability."

Hermione blinked. "Pardon?" What was she even talking about? How could capability be a fault?

"I...I was so efficient. I didn't need him. I took care of the house, the funds, the family..." She shook her head and bowed it down to look at the semi-transparent porcelain in her hands. "I was so filled to the brim with how...capable I was...I never stopped to consider where he fit in with all that." Her smile was a bit wobbly and Hermione wondered if she was about to have a crying fest in her Mum's kitchen without her Mum.

That had never happened before and it was weird.

"You don't have to—"

Marta's head lifted up suddenly and stared her down with sadness. "Who did you leave behind? Hmm? I can see it. I know those tear tracks, very well, I might add. And I remember how capable you were. Always outpacing my Elsie at school. But if I know you as well as I think I do, he didn't leave you, you left him, right?"

Hermione's face blanched in shock. Was she that much of a transparent mess? She reached up and patted her hair down again, slightly shocking her fingers as she did so. Her indignity rose up in her own defense, "He was kicking me out. I chose to leave before he did so."

Marta tilted her head sadly at Hermione and looked her over with a gentle appraisal. "There's someone else, isn't there?"

"What?" Was this woman Sybill Bloody Trelawney in disguise? Hermione edged back in her seat, preparing to find the telephone—but then who would she call?

The older woman continued, catching her attention before she could move more than an inch, "Someone completely opposite from him and makes your blood race every second you think about him."

Oh that was it, this woman was barking mad. Hermione stood up, but the older woman grabbed her sleeve, "Marta! This is ridiculous. I will not just stay here listening—"

Her blue eyes were pleading up at her and it was so odd to see this woman act in such a manner, "Hermione, you misunderstand! I just want you to answer one question for me and then I'll go pack my things, I promise."

Her eyes narrowed, "I'll try."

Marta smiled another watery smile and asked her question, "Why?"

"Why what?"

Her watery eyes hardened and the grip on her sleeve tightened. "Why did you choose to leave the security of your family for something so fleeting?"

A gear clicked in her head and her eyes widened in shock. Marta was comparing Hermione to her husband? She pulled her hand off her arm and set it on the table, pushing the tea cup from her grandmother's service out of reach, "No, Marta, Harry's not my husband, he's my best friend from school. He's more like a brother to me, or I thought he was until he wanted to kick me out today. He actually likes Severus...well...I guess he doesn't like him anymore."

At her continued look of disbelief, she clarified, "I'm not married, Marta. I...I don't have a family to leave like Randolph did."

The older woman's face crumpled in tears and she dropped her head to her folded arms on the kitchen table. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Hermione. I just can't seem to see past him, anymore."

She went to pat her on the back in an awkwardly comforting gesture. "Perhaps it's time you did move. Like to another part of town? I think it might do you good. Do you have money?"

She nodded, "I only took this job to have a house to manage in this community. I have my own funds."

"Good. I think it's time you found your own 'fleeting'. What do you think?"

A small bark of laughter rang out as Marta sat up with a reddened, wet face and bloodshot blue eyes. "You mean, like a cabana boy?"

They both giggled. "If you like. Sure, why not?"

"I don't know. I guess I can try."

/

It wasn't until she'd helped Marta painfully and tearfully pack everything in her room off the kitchen and sent her off on her 'great perhaps' that Hermione finally let the entire afternoon roll over her.

She was so unbelievably exhausted. From the heights of her time with Severus this morning...hell, from her argument with Remus this morning and everything that had happened last night at Hestry's, to her interrogation summons and the subsequent argument with Harry and Remus...then to come home to the unwelcome wagon, she wasn't sure how much more of this she could take.

She flopped on the sofa, spread all the way out and rested her head on the low, cushioned arm, the chenille fabric warm and comforting in her exhaustion. She needed a shower and a change of clothes. She needed to send that owl to Grimmauld Place for her things. She...Oh, God, she promised she would come back and see Severus!

And, oh, how she needed to see him, too, but she was so very, very tired...

The house had been painful to walk through, empty of everything about her own childhood. Perhaps she should go to that long-term storage unit tomorrow and see about bringing her things back.

Then again, perhaps she should wait until her parents' memories were restored. What if they wanted to kick her out, too?

She groaned and pushed herself into a sitting position. Time enough to think about that when the time came. She trudged down the hall to the master suite to indulge in her parents' multi-head shower. That was one thing she missed about the Muggle world...invention. Once Wizards thought they had it right, it was like pulling teeth to get anyone to change it. Their showers still had only one head on them, and regardless of her multiplication charms, the water pressure couldn't be compensated for in a building built with Muggle plumbing, so that was always a failure.

As she washed herself, Marta's words kept sneaking back into her head to play havoc with her confidence.

"_Why did you leave your family for something so fleeting? So fleeting? Fleeting..."_

She pushed her head under the powerful spray to wash the soap out of her eyes. Severus was not fleeting. What she felt for him was not something so impermanent. Why else would she have spent the past two years scouring Britain for him? Why else would she have shunned everyone else's opinion for him?

How could that be fleeting?

"It's not. It's not fleeting. If anything it's per-permanent." She shut off the water valve and stood there, dripping, then summoned a towel for her hair before drying the rest of her body off with a charm.

She walked up to the large vanity mirror over her mother's now-empty makeup table and looked in, her face finally clean of cosmetics and the day's grime. "It _is_ permanent. I love him."

* * *

><p><span><em>Author's Notes:<em>

This has not been beta'd. Forgive me!

Hermione's parent's house in the movie was filmed in the Hampstead Garden suburb, so yeah, I based everything I could on Hermione's trip home on that. All my info comes from wikipedia, the London Underground website and images gleaned from Google Earth. I have never actually been there, so all mistakes are mine and please forgive me. I really did try to make it all plausible, all the way down to the above ground lines on the northwest of London to Golders Green and that GG doesn't have a car park. What's pretty cool is that right around the corner from the tube station IS a dentist's office and a church, so that was fun to find. My apologies if I have gleaned too much from life, or not enough.

Grimmauld Place: I have decided to base it off of Gordon Square. I really does look very much like the movie set and is relatively close to all the hplexicon markers that were clues to possible locations. And Euston Station is just a few blocks away according to the map. Whether or not a young woman would walk those streets alone, I have no idea. It looks to be fairly affluent and close to a University, so I would hazard and guess and say, yes, she could. The park in that area is just large enough to see the sky at night and just green enough to hide in for an Apparation point. The only problem is that I've already written the steps as slate and all around the square, all steps look to be sandstone or some other light stone (concrete perhaps). At least the sidewalk is slate. ^-^ The street is not in horrible disrepair is I've indicated in my story, but let's just play that with the house stretching out from between the row, so does the street widen and show the cobbled brick drive used to set the street before paving it, yeah? Okay! We're not even addressing the garden. That's magic and we'll leave it as magic. K? K.

Father Clarke is a hodgepodge of two people: the bishop from Les Mis and my own Father Clarke.

Marta and Elsie Rankle are not important to anything other than this particular series of scenes, but I needed something to get Hermione thinking about her situation between Harry and Severus, and I needed Mister Officer to show up later ;) As for Marta's rather hasty departure, she knew this day would come and it's been two years. It was about time for her to start living her life, she just needed the catalyst of the Granger's homecoming to start the fire.

As for the people of the neighborhood? Their reactions are based off of my own experiences with walking through an exclusive neighborhood and no one knows who you are. It is not intended to reflect poorly upon the suburb of Hampstead Garden or its residents. I was trying to convey that it was more a reaction to someone they don't know and is just walking (seemingly) randomly through their streets in a close-nit community that looks rather untidy. (Which one of these is not like the other one?)

The officer, himself, may seem a little odd, but if you think about it, he's patrolling through a neighborhood of rather rich and powerful people. He's kind of bound by the hands and knees on how he acts. If Hermione had turned out to actually be 'one of them', he could be brought up on harassment charges if she felt so inclined. (forgive me for also overlaying an American feel to that, it is all I know)

We'll be back with Neville and Ron, next, I think...with a small splash of Severus. I know you guys are wanting more SSHG interaction, and it will come (ahem) but I've got plot running amok, here. Thank you for your patience.

Special thanks to all the wonderful writers of SSHG out there who do their updates on a lovely time schedule. You keep me inspired. And typing. Xoxo Dena.

Extra Special Lovely Thanks to All my LOVELY REVIEWERS! I have been totally lax in responding and will hop on that ASAP. I have been writing this instead of anything else. I hope you don't mind.


	19. Chapter 19

A/N: hang onto your brooms, dearies, the ride's not over yet!

**Chapter 18**

Hannah glared at her two former classmates as she dropped their third ales down in front of them. Neville smiled at her rather sheepishly as she walked away, then awkwardly tossed a privacy spell around the u-shaped booth where they were both sprawled in the back.

Ron reached his long arms forward and dragged the glasses back to them, slightly spilling the froth across the table. After taking a sip with an appreciative smack, he set his ale on his stomach and his head back to the wood of the booth, "S'honestly. You've never dunnit?"

He was in the middle of contemplating whether the drink was too hoppy or his tongue was too numb to care when Ron's comment nearly made him choke on it, "Ugh-god, n'this again. Ron, drop it a'right?"

Ron kept staring out at the pub and took another drink, "Nah, iss fascinatin'. I mean, y'said y' had it all hot fer Looney during the battle, wha' happened there?" He smirked, "She act'lly turn y'down?"

What? As if! It was much worse than that...he groaned, "_No_! She met that Samander...Scalamander—bloody hell—_Scamander_ bloke."

Ron's blue eyes narrowed as he rolled his head to face Neville, "Wha's he got you don't?"

"Ex-pedition rights." And a nice arse. His turn to take a sip and stare out to the pub.

"Wha?"

"They're in South America right now, esploring the wilderness." He grew annoyed with how whinging he sounded. "And I'm here, piddling with pills." No...depressed sounded _much_ better. Ugh, he was such an arse.

Another sip on their drinks for both of them.

"Well that's sup-stupid."

Neville snorted. "Yeah."

"I mean, tha' doesn't make y'a _poofter_."

Neville turned to look at Ron in amusement, then promptly looked away from those blue eyes and wide lips. He clenched his jaw, "Shut up."

"Well it don't!"

He really had no idea what he was talking about, did he? Did he have to spell it out for him? Probably, this was Ron Weasley. Great at the long view but terrible in the short. Ah, God, _shorts_... Track, Neville, track! "It does when I let it happen cause I was too fuckin' busy watching him more than her!"

"No shit, really?"

Ron's surprised tone indicated that he might have actually gotten through to him. He chanced a glance but all he saw was him taking another swig of ale, "...yeah."

He dropped the empty glass to the table, "Well, fuck."

Neville snorted derisively, "Still not me."

Ron blinked, then turned to him, "A'right, there ya go. You should do that."

His turn to blink, "Wha?"

"Go find a witch to f-fuck. I promise ye'll like it."

He was off his blinkin' rocker. Besides, "M'plonker says not."

Ron shifted in the booth to face his drinking mate, his knee coming to rest against Neville's thigh, "Wha'y'mean?"

Neville blushed and wasn't sure if it was proximity or ale that had him spilling his secrets like this, but what the hell, "He don't stand up for...girls."

"But he does it for blokes?" The ginger rested his head to the side on the booth and regarded Neville with curiosity.

He watched him back with open confusion. "Um, yeah, sort of."

Ron snorted. "How is that a 'sort of'? He either stands up or not."

"It's complicated."

"Not really."

"Maybe not for _you_."

Ron looked down. He actually looked down at his own crotch and made Neville blush when his eyes followed without hesitation, "Well, maybe I can see what you mean. It can get kind of half mast for no reason sometimes."

He turned his head away and went to choke down the last of his drink to hide his blush.

"You kissed her, right?"

"Mm?" Merlin, Ron was going to kill him with these questions and odd statements. A zip of awareness flushed through his body. Was he...?

"Luna. You kissed her?"

He turned to look Ron in the face with an accelerated heart rate, lips slightly parted, "Yeah."

Ron nodded once, sharply, eyes half-lidded, "Did you like it?"

He was breathless, "It was fine. Nice."

"Right." Another nod. "'Kay, so have you ever kissed a _guy_?"

Ron's hands were gesturing wildly and Neville fought to keep his attention on what exactly he was saying, careful with his answers. Where was this leading? "N-no."

Carefree laughter met his ears and trilled down his spine. Ron's next question was stunning in it's simplicity, "So how do you know?"

He was pared down to one-word replies, waiting to see what would be said next. His hands were shaking, "What?"

Ron had that _look_. That look where he was trying to _convince_ someone of something and fuck all the consequences. He continued talking in spite of Neville's silence, "If you've never even tried it, how do you know? Maybe your willie's just bored and stands up for air. Or maybe you should try to kiss a guy to find out if you like it."

Neville took a shuddered breath and sat there, shaking. Was this really happening? "Um?"

And then the oddest words came out of Ron's mouth. They were what he wanted to hear, but exactly the wrong way to say it...

Ron puckered up into an imitation of a fish and then laughed heartily, "C'mon, Nev, give us a kiss." The fishie lips came back with suckering noises and devolved into laughter.

That was when he realized just how far gone Ron really was. "You're fucking drunk."

Ron thought that was incredibly funny and leaned back in the booth, eyes closed, alternating between making kissing noises and smiling softly. There was just something so endearing about that, he nearly thought twice about just—

"Oh, c'mon, jus—just one. Then you c'n say you did it." He puckered up like a child and laughed again, but that was more than Neville could really handle. He wanted to kiss Ron and here he was, asking for it. He was arguing for it, asking for it, saying it was for edification purposes only, so why the hell was he just sitting there?

Bugger it. He reached forward with both hands and grabbed Ron's face to hone in on his mouth that was still full of laughter. He got a lot of teeth, but his tongue took care of that and for one outstanding, brilliant moment...Ron kissed him back.

It was warm and soft and breathy and everything stood still. No noise, no music, no pub, no nothing except Ron, lighting up his central nervous system like a catherine wheel.

In fact, the lights seemed to be getting brighter...someone was calling his name...

He surfaced for air when Ron pushed him off with a confused look on his face and looked to the opening of the booth at a small Patronus trying to get Neville's attention.

His face blanched. Astrid sending him a Patronus could only mean one thing. Snape and the HyPAC. Her message confirmed that and before he knew it, both the Patronus and Ron were gone from the booth, leaving Neville sitting there with Hannah staring at him with a small, bemused smile on her face.

Merlin's Balls, how much did everyone see when the Patronus broke the privacy spell? Was that why Ron left? Or did he leave because he was confused? He'd been with Hermione for all those years, after all, perhaps he wasn't...into...

Neville dropped his head into his hands, "Ugh! Why's it always _me_?"

/

Hoping to put this fiasco out of his mind as quickly as possible, Neville paid the bill and rushed out of the pub's floo connection to his office to find...complete darkness...

"Lumos!"

He threw his coat and scarf to the chair by his desk and made his way out into the hallway, heading towards the Party Cell. Astrid had said they'd had a magical overload, but the records from eleven years ago when this happened before weren't all that clear. They were metaphorically and literally working in the dark, here.

"Astrid? Muriel...Miss Gladys?"

He heard faint noises coming from around the corner and assumed they were with Snape. The hallways were eerily empty, especially considering some of the other patients they had in this ward, so he went to check down those halls to make sure all was well with them, first.

Starting with his parents' suite, he reset the wards and lit the room. His mother's smile met his and she handed him another Droobles wrapper. "Thanks, Mum. You and Dad keep calm, I've got to go check on everyone else, okay? Love you."

The placid expression on her face as she plucked at her sheets was the same as any other day. Dad just stared at the ceiling. He stuffed the candy wrapper into his pocket and looked at them, so carefree...at least he hoped. All their scans had always pointed to simple thinking, like a reflected windowpane for his Mum or a blank wall for his Dad. They had tried the HyPAC for them, but one at a time or both together was just...white.

He sighed and leaned against the doorway, whispering not quite to himself. "I think I met someone today, Mum. Well, not so much met, but met again. He might hate me for what I did, but he might not. I don't know...I hope not." He looked up at her as she smiled over at Dad. They were starting to show their age, now. She'd had gray hair for a while, but they'd both started showing wrinkles and thinner skin.

Perhaps he needed to up their nutritive potions, maybe some extra PT to get the limbs a little more active.

Merlin, this _hurt_. Why'd they let him do this? The board was completely gone to have let their own son take on their case, but then again, who else was making strides in the only field what could help them? The Wizarding world wasn't that big to start with.

He blew out a great heave of air, drooped his shoulders and left the room, closing the door gently behind him.

Down the corridor to the right was Mister Bremer. He could actually hear the nonsensical laughter interspersed with sobbing. Poor sod. He set the lights and intermittent wards as he went with small flicks of his wand, grateful to his predecessor's forethought that they'd gone over every possible security measure. Some places in St. Mungo's leave this kind of work for Security and they'd have been waiting for hours for someone from the Ministry to show up and reset everything.

He poked his head in on Mister Bremer, turning on the lights as if this were just a normal check in at bed-time. "All right?"

Normalcy was always the easiest way to deal with him. Anything else sent him off in peals of laughter the poor fellow couldn't control. The older man nodded his head with his hands slapped over his mouth, eyes bright with tears.

"Has the nurse been round with your nightcap?"

A snuffle-snort escaped from behind Mister Bremer's hand as he shook his head in the negative.

Neville nodded and rather thought he must be really exhausted from laughing too hard if he was at the point of trying to stop it himself. Perhaps a pain potion along with his normal calmative might help. "Hang on, I'll be right back."

A slight gurgling noise wafted over to him and he looked back to see Mister Bremer watching him. He stepped back out into the hallway to the cart kept locked and individually warded there. Taking what he needed, he gave the dosed ampoules to his patient, who gulped them down greedily.

With a deep sigh of relief, his patient handed the vials back, "Th-thank-" he giggled softly, "Thank you."

He sank back down to his mattress with a smile and Neville left him to find his next patient.

/

"...That has fifteen. And that was three and fourteen. Which was six and twenty-seven. Should I not count the number words? Oh blast! That was five, eight, fourteen, ooh, twenty-seven makes twenty-seven, lovely. Now, where was I?"

Neville smiled at the former Gringott's clerk and lit the lights for the room. The goblin hissed and turned to the door, "Don't you know better than to interrupt?"

"My apologies, Mister Gar. I came with your evening potion."

"Mm. Two and two and six and fifty, very well. Hand it over."

His mumblings continued as his long fingers reached for his nightly dosage of Apathy. It was the only potion they could get him to take that would positively affect his counting long enough for him to get some rest and the goblin would never take it in front of Neville. One of the female nurses, perhaps, but never Neville.

"I'll just leave you to it then. Have a pleasant evening."

He stopped and listened as he pulled the door shut, "Eleven, forty-seven. Would that were the time, I could sleep through till morning." His sad, depressed voice made Neville close his eyes for a bit.

"Eleven. Fifty-two."

As soon as he heard the sound of a bit of charmed glass tip against teeth, he quietly shut the door completely and made his way to check on Mister Lockhart and Miss Jessop.

/

The next patient was right by the nurses station, for all the trouble he'd cause otherwise. If he didn't think he was in the middle of things, he'd surely get up and go looking for trouble, which was why Neville thought it was strange that he was still in his room with the loss of the wards.

As soon as he found the door ajar and his room empty, he knew his luck was out. "Mister Lockhart?"

He double checked the room, just in case, but knew it was empty.

"_Shite_."

He barreled down the hall, throwing wards and lights as he went, to the only other occupant. The only _female_ occupant.

A tinny bit of sound floated out and met his ears with an off-key tenor trying to follow a tune. Neville sighed in relief, realizing he'd not have to come to an immediate and harrowing rescue, after all. Slowing his steps, he listened as he approached.

"Bum. Bah-dum-da-dum. Bah-bum. Be-dedlededee-be-do-Be-DE!"

Huh. One of her more interesting pieces, that was for—oh, no, what _was_ that smell?

He pushed open the door and was assaulted by an overwhelming stench of fecal matter but that wasn't the most bizarre. Moonlight from a window allowed in the barest hint of light for him to focus on the innocuous, horrific, confusing sight before him. He vaguely remembered Hermione describing a Muggle movie about the Marquis de Sade writing on the walls with his own excrement when he'd been denied anything else to write with or on, but Neville had never believed someone actually capable...

He blinked and his eyes burned, tearing at what he was seeing. Miss Jessop was reaching as far as she could reach with her fingers on a third wall and finger painting with what he assumed was her own excrement out of a pitcher that had been provided for her water—charmed unbreakable, of course.

What was the most extraordinary was that Lockhart was standing in the middle of the room in his bronze dressing gown, reading what she wrote on the walls—music—and singing it out in his own way. The silly buggar was actually standing in the middle of a stinking room and singing like it made no difference that it stank like a sewer in here.

The music itself pealed off the walls in a tinny, forced charm that Miss Jessop couldn't help but imbue into whatever she wrote her music on. If they'd allowed her a wand, she'd have kept the halls full of the sound of her scribblings day and night, regardless of their organization or completeness. It drove the staff mad, with her endless requests for more parchment, more ink, more quills. It looked like someone decided that enough was enough.

Only that was probably too much.

He couldn't take the smell anymore and rippled the air with a freshening charm.

Lockhart stopped singing. Neville shot a silencing charm on the metallic music weeping from the walls, but Miss Jessop kept writing as if nothing had changed.

"Miss Jessop, are you all right?"

"Oh, she's perfectly fine, old bean. Just needs a good tune to keep her happy. That's why I was singing to her, to keep her calm and let her know I had everything under control."

"Uh-huh. Right." If he didn't have to escort him back to his room personally, he'd have told him off, but...alas.

Neville flicked on a light to the room and approached Miss Jessop carefully. How the hell was he to handle this?

"If you need my help, anything at all, just ask! I'm famous, you know!"

"Mm-hmm. Yep. World-famous."

"Ah! You know me then!"

"Oh, yeah." He sighed. This was the seven-hundredth time they'd had this conversation. His next response would be:

"Well. Erm...then, who am I?"

Yep. Just like last time. He closed his eyes and drooped in the despair of repetition. "You're Gilderoy Lockhart."

"I am?"

"Yep."

"Oh, that's a fine name. I like it. I think I'll keep that one."

He let loose a long-suffering sigh with his back turned to Lockhart and tried to shift around so Miss Jessop could see him.

He had to be so very careful when she was like this. She could be fine or she could round on him like a banshee. There really was no telling. With the evidence on the wall, he rather thought the likelihood of a banshee incident was high.

"Do you need my assistance? I could stun her for you, if you like. I could do it wandlessly with one arm tied behind my back. I did that once, you know. Can't really remember the exact circumstances, but—"

Neville conjured a mirror and floated it over in front of Lockhart with a smirk. That shut him up.

Now, back to the delicate task at hand.

"Natalie?"

She paused, but resumed writing, dipping her hand deep into the pitcher and coming out with only the tip of her finger wet with excrement. It looked like she would run out of her 'ink', soon, anyway. What would she have done then?

He shuddered at the thought.

"Natalie? I need you to look at me, please."

She continued writing until she scraped the bottom of the jug and her finger came out dry. Her hand started shaking and she looked around the room, helplessly, determinedly.

He'd never seen such a mad look on her face before.

"Miss Jessop, please, look at me. We'll copy it all down and I'll get you some parchment, but please, stop for a moment."

Miracle of miracles, she did. She looked at him and then to the pitcher, which she then threw to the floor and quickly scrambled for a shard before it repaired itself.

Oh, Merlin, not that! He panicked, threw a full body-bind at her before she could carve into her wrist and banished the defiled pitcher. He then levitated her to her bed, conjured a blanket and covered her from foot to neck. "What have we done to you? No more of this, all right?"

He shook with the compulsion to tear through the halls at whichever of his employees treated one of their patients so negligently. "We'll find a better way for you, all right? I promise." He brushed her fringe from her forehead and left her petrified so he could handle Lockhart and come back to her.

With a heavy heart, he turned around and saw the narcissistic lump still enchanted with his own reflection. He sighed and thought about banishing the mirror, but then thought it might be easier to lure him to his own rooms with it.

"All right, you. Get a move on."

Neville floated the mirror down the hall and into Lockhart's room with no trouble, the man himself following like a lovesick puppy. He stuck the mirror to an empty space on the wall next to a picture of him riding a broomstick and left. That man needed nothing more than himself to make him happy.

Turning on his heels, he sped back down the hall and stopped at the nurse's trolley for a vial of Dreamless Sleep for Miss Jessop. Renervating her, he gave her the potion and waited until it took effect beneath her wary eye and his wandpoint before conjuring parchment to copy down her work from the walls. When every last finger-painting was transferred in exact shape, if not color, he Evanescoed the lot from the walls and freshened the room again.

Just in case, he double checked the floors, under her bed, the window, every surface for anything she might use to hurt herself or do anything like this again. The protective charms on her bed were strengthened, her linens then charmed against tying or tearing. He swallowed as this was the first time he'd actually had to use those charms. Just for safe-keeping, he performed the charm on her clothing, as well.

He left her with a conjured sheaf of parchment and a Muggle crayon on the floor, removing her nightstand as well.

Neville went in search of the other nurses, seething at the possibilities that could have resulted from someone's careless behavior that night. Someone's head was going to roll for this. Snape was in rough condition, but to leave every other one of their patients to their own mercies during a complete ward drop like this? For just one man already in a protective cell?

He was fuming by the time he made it round the corner to see Gladys wringing her hands at the HyPAC door. Wringing. Her. Hands.

What the FUCK was she doing standing there, wringing her hands? He assumed Muriel and Astrid were inside, working on whatever the hell went wrong with Snape, but _Gladys_? She didn't have the level of medical training the other nurses did and only helped with diagnostics and housekeeping. She had no reason to even be there, much less simply stand there.

He took a few deep breaths through his nose, clenching and unclenching his fists, trying to find some sort of logical reason for one of his staff to be so unprofessional.

They'd been lucky. No one had gotten out into the Hospital Proper. No one had been injured—barely. For fuck's sake, Natalie had painted the walls with her own _shit_ because one of the—probably this one—fuckwits had decided they didn't want to give her any more ink! He swallowed hard at the thought of just how far she was willing to go to get her music out of her head. He'd bought them all time, tonight, but he couldn't have someone just standing there when everything went tits up.

_Breathe_, Neville. _Breathe_, before you wring Gladys' neck for leaving them all vulnerable to their own selves.

Thinking he'd finally gotten enough rein on his temper to approach this woman and find out just why she was simply standing there, he did so, "Ahem. Gladys. Kindly tell me why you are here and not checking on the other corridors."

Her wet, piggy eyes swept to meet his stern gaze, "Oh, it's just horrible! He's in a coma and there's nothing I can do for him! They won't let me help!"

Idiot woman! "That's because you're supposed to be checking on the other patients. The wards fell on the other corridors, Gladys, why haven't you been to check on them?"

She had the nerve to wave her hand indifferently at him, "They're fine, I'm sure. They always stay to their rooms. A ministry official will be here to reset the wards, Mister Longbottom, don't worry."

He growled out between tight teeth, "I've reset them myself. And they did _not_ stay to their rooms."

"What?"

Something akin to cognizance of her precarious position just might have been churning through her small, animal brain, but Neville wanted to be perfectly clear, "Do you understand the legalities involved should anyone find out that a male patient was alone in a dark, unwarded, _unmonitored_ room with Miss Jessop?"

Her round, humid face paled, "I'm...I'm sure there was no harm done. You found them, right?"

Neville narrowed his eyes and took a wild guess as to who would deny Natalie her paper. "On whose authority did you withhold parchment and ink from Miss Jessop and for how long?"

"H-how did you—?"

"I thought so." Merlin, this woman made him sick. "You have tonight to clean out your desk and your locker but I want you gone by the end of your shift."

"No! They _need_ me!" She reached forward to grab his arm with two meaty hands and a sickeningly desperate look on her face.

He threw them off with disgust, "_Who_ needs you? The one you can't help in _there_?" He pointed from where they were treating Snape to their other patients who were finally secured, "Or the ones you _haven't_ _been_ helping?"

Her wibbling was offensive. "Get down to your station and make sure no one gets past those wards until you leave. Now get out of my sight." He snarled and pushed past her into the pensieve chamber, hoping never to lay eyes on her again.

/

Hermione got herself ready for St. Mungo's in record time, hoping to slip in to see Severus before the visiting hours ended for the day. Squawking as she glanced at the clock on the nightstand, she quickly regarded the outfit she'd pilfered from her mother's closet—the blouse and trousers would just have to do, regardless of how dowdy they looked on her—and grabbed her wand, readying herself to Apparate.

A quick bit of concentration, and she was in the Apparation Foyer of St. Mungo's, rushing towards the Janus Thickey Ward. She was almost too rushed to notice, but the further down the halls and closer to her destination she got, the weirder things seemed to be. Nurses and Healers were rushing about, sometimes into darkened rooms, and the hallways themselves became dark as she approached the large doors separating the long-term facilities from the rest of the hospital, lit only by the rising moon shining through an occasional window.

Pushing open the left door and sneaking in, she called out, "Hello?"

It was even darker inside.

She tightened her grip on her wand and made her way as best she could to where she remembered Severus to be. She came up to a cross-hub of corridors that was lit and wouldn't let her pass through to the other side. If she remembered correctly, Neville's parents were down to the left and Mister Lockhart was just over there.

Where were the nurses?

"Hell-o-ooo?"

Should she send a patronus to Neville? This looked like some sort of lock down. What if they were in the middle of a crisis and all she wanted was to see Severus. She'd be completely embarrassed and Neville would most likely be upset at her.

And she really, _really_ didn't need more people upset at her right now. She bit her lips together at the reminder of her argument with Harry and Remus, still not understanding how they could—

"Oh, it's _you_."

Hermione blinked at the large woman walking towards her from the other side, "Excuse me?"

Her green robes placed her as a worker, here, and Hermione felt like she remembered seeing her earlier, but how could she have missed that horrid orange hair?

"Mister Snape is unable to receive visitors. You should leave."

Hermione's mouth opened in shock at the rude tone the nurse was using. "Neville himself—"

"Is with the patient at this moment. Mister Snape is un-unable to receive visitors during the r-rest of his recovery. Please leave."

Hermione's face was heating up with anger. This was getting to be too much. First she was kicked out of Grimmauld Place, and now she was being turned away from Severus? Neville knew she was coming back. He even said she'd been helping his recovery.

"You're mistaken, Madam. I don't know who you think you are—"

The nurse completely flipped, screeching, "I am _still_ his caretaker this night! I am duty-bound to protect him from the likes of you!"

"What?!" The likes of her? What—who—

"_Charlatan_!" The woman pointed a fat finger at Hermione and narrowed her dark, wet eyes across the glittering ward, "You claim to be visiting, to be a friend, but I know what your _true_ motive is." She shifted her stance and pointed again, "You want to use his fame, his status as a war-hero. You didn't care about him when he was a _nothing_. When he _needed_ someone to care about him. No, you're nothing better than a trollop!"

Oh, she'd had just about enough of this. Who the hell did she think she was? Authority figure or not, Severus was _hers_! "Listen here, you Trunchbull-lookalike, that man is ultimately under _my_ care. I don't give a damn what you think your role is here, but you're going to let me through this ward or I'm calling Neville."

The old bat laughed. Actually laughed at Hermione. "Call him! Go _ahead_! He's the one that locked down this ward, you stupid cow! He sent me down here to make sure no one gets past it." They watched each other for a brief second before the mad woman continued, "So bugger off, you sick deviant, before I call security!"

Hermione shook her head, not believing what was happening here, "I'm not leaving until I see Severus." A niggling thought that the reason for the lock down _was_ Severus started worrying the back of her brain.

An ugly, dark smile broke across the woman's round, ruddy face. "Fine. It just makes my evening to have to call security on _you_." At that, a silver strand of light shot off from her wand through the large doors down the hall behind Hermione.

She could not believe this, "You crazy old bat, let me in! I have a right to see him!"

"Ha! Fat chance!" Her sneer dropped into a simper, signaling someone had arrived behind Hermione, "Geoffrey, remove this woman from my sight. She's made a nuisance of herself and we're in the middle of a lock down."

Hermione spun around and saw a young man close to her age, though probably no older than eighteen or nineteen. He looked tired and exasperated, but moved towards her with a determined air.

This wasn't happening. This just could not be happening. She needed Severus, he was the only one left that would welcome her, now. Her best friend had kicked her out, she was ostracized from nearly everyone she'd become close to, she'd sent her own parents off to Australia years ago and it was her own fault they weren't back here, with her. And now St. Mungo's was chucking her to the curb.

No, she needed Severus.

Thinking of their morning together, she conjured a bright patronus and whispered to it: _Severus, I need you_.

Before she could watch her otter scamper down the hall, evading the grasping attempts of the nurse to stop it, the security guard gently took hold of her upper arm.

"C'mon, then. I've got too much to do tonight to mess with this crap."

She turned to him and saw a sympathetic light in his hazel eyes, indicating that the crap he was referring to was the nurse and not her. "You know she's completely off her rocker."

He sighed and drooped at bit, "Yeah, but you're the one causing a ruckus, so where does that leave me?"

She nodded defeatedly and allowed him to lead her out of the hallway, through the rest of the hospital to the Apparation Foyer. "Thanks for...well...being nice about this."

He shrugged, "Yeah, well, thanks for saving my brother's life at the Battle of Hogwarts."

Her head tilted up suddenly, "What?" She looked at him for some sign of familiarity, something to trigger who his brother might be.

He continued on without clarifying. "G'night. Oh, and don't worry. I won't file this, so it won't affect your interrogation."

She was still caught on his brother's identity, but that was a very nice thing for him to do. "Um...Thank you. Who was he?"

"My brother?"

"Yeah?"

"Oh, his name was Wa—"

Before he could finish, a call for "_Security_!" rang out from a scuffle starting down the corridor.

"Bugger. I've got to go! Have a good one!" He called to her over his shoulder as he ran off.

"Wait! Oh, crap. I don't even know who he was talking about."

Another security officer swept by her and she jumped backwards into the Apparation Foyer.

She stopped and looked at the people milling about at the end of the corridor, trying to subdue someone. Normally, she'd eagerly jump into the fray and lend a hand, but...she took a deep, shaky breath. She was just so tired and no one seemed to want her help, anyway.

Leaning up against the lintel of the doorway, she closed her eyes. A complete stranger thanked her for something she couldn't even remember doing two years ago, but the rest of the Wizarding world was...was what? Tired of her? Her mouth screwed up in anger. Well, perhaps she was tired of them.

She pushed off the jamb and stepped back into the foyer, away from offering any aid to those in need.

She'd already fought her battles, as Geoffrey the Security Guard so neatly reminded her, and some people apparently had a short-term memory. To the Wizarding world, she was a good witch, but one that had no place, no education, and—as of this afternoon—no friends. Right now, she needed to head back home and regroup, figure out a way to get in and see Severus. Perhaps she should wait until tomorrow and owl Neville, if he was even disposed to talk to her. With that bitter thought and a spinning crack, she landed in her mother's kitchen, desperate for a cup of tea after such a horrid, horrid day.

Sipping from her grandmother's Meissen, she remembered her message to Severus and hoped he received it.

She closed her eyes and thought the words again: _Severus, I need you._

/

Back in the penseive chamber, three people were working on diagnosing Severus' level of coma as he lay inert on his single bed. Without warning, a bright light shot into the room, bounding off the gray walls that gave off an eerie white light, and scampering around to finally land on the unconscious man's chest.

Astrid, Muriel and Neville all stood up in surprise and looked from their patient, to the patronus, to each other and watched the patronus curl up to wait and deliver its missive, slowly glowing to what seemed like a heartbeat's rhythm.

Neville shook himself loose of his shock and realized just who that patronus belonged to. He also remembered the last thing he'd said to Gladys.

Damn. Well, he'd just have to owl Hermione later, he needed to get Snape together, first.

**End Chapter**

* * *

><p><span>Author's Notes:<span>

Holy Cricket, this was a hard one to write! Lots happening and so much more to come.

From the beginning of the chapter, Hannah is listed as eventually becoming proprietress and landlady of the Leaky Cauldron on HPLexicon, but she's also listed as marrying Neville Longbottom. Obviously this is where book and movie collide. My story severely deviates from that, so we've got a mention of both girls here, with a heavy dose of canon-play by mentioning Scamander.

The boys and their drunk-speak: I've always abhorred "ish" in drunk-speak. I've never actually heard anyone slur s's and h's together when they're drunk so it makes no sense to me to use it as a literary method of making someone sound drunk. I think I did it just fine without the "ish". What do you think? ;)

Ron's behavior: when we're drunk, we do a lot of things we'd not do otherwise, like be silly, tease, get horny, talk about sex in very open ways, etc. I'd like to think that Ron is an open-minded person, but would probably never kiss a guy under normal circumstances. Get him drunk, however, and he'd logic himself into a pretty funny loophole. That and how many times did he get severely jealous of Harry or anyone monopolizing Harry's time during the books? That always seemed a bit fishy to me.

Oh, and Ron's query of "C'mon, Nev, give us a kiss" is a mangled steal from Vanity Fair. Specifically, the 1998 TV miniseries with David Bradley as Sir Pitt Crawley. Yep, we all know David Bradley better as Argus Filch ;)

Of course, I just had to put in Neville's famous phrase from CoS. It was just too perfect a chance to use it :D

Remember the crazy people from somewhere around Chapter 10? I love them. I love every single one of them. I think Mister Bremer and Mister Gar are my favorites, though, because they are a part of me. Laughing until you get sick from it is disturbing, but laughing at anything and everything, no matter what, and at the complete confusion of everyone around you...yeah...it's embarrassing. It's also painful. The counting thing, however...how many of you figured out what he was counting? Have I been obvious enough? I hope so. You can literally count yourself mad by trying to count words and letters in a sentence. My take on Mister Gar is that he got caught up counting everything and was so focused down on the present that he simply couldn't count anything other than what was spoken. He didn't have the time. Imagine what would happen to a goblin that went mad from counting too much?

And yes, I don't really like Mister Lockhart's character. I hope I portrayed him well enough.

I did steal from "Quills", starring Geoffrey Rush, Kate Winslet and Joaquin Phoenix for the scene with Miss Jessop. There are times, usually at night and in the darkest parts, that music literally fills my mind and WILL NOT STOP. I have to do something to get it out. It might be someone else's, or a mix, or a remix, or something original, but I've got to get it out or it will drive me insane. I think if I were left alone in the dark too much with nothing to do but stare at the blank walls, this would happen to me.

Now, Astrid is mine, but Muriel really does work for the JT (ref: HPLexicon) and Gladys is mentioned under HP-wiki as Gilderoy Lockhart's biggest fan. I can just imagine a crazed fan learning the barest nursing needed to get a little closer to her favorite person. And really, how far is it to jump favorites from Lockhart to the man who beat him so beautifully in a dueling club presentation at Hogwarts? She's a bit of a nut, herself.

There is no point to Geoffrey (ha! Name) or his brother, except to remind Hermione of certain things. End-of.

I hope you like this installment and I really hope I haven't lost anyone along the way. I'm really trying to do my best in rounding out the whole of the story and what is necessary for all it's impact. In case you're wondering, I had planned for everything to be wrapped up in 18 chapters, but this group of scenes was to take place somewhere about chapter 15...yeah. Kind of underestimated that. I'm guessing we're about 75% of the way through, at this point.** Imma shut up now except to thank every single one of you! Please remember that I cannot thank you if you only review as a guest! Except here: Thank you! Xoxo Dena.**


	20. Chapter 20

A/N: Let's recap, shall we? It's been four days in the story and three days between our favorite couple. He's dropped off into a stress and magic induced coma (consider it a light one that's much easier to wake from than a deep one) and Hermione's just left St Mungo's after having to deal with Gladys the Ebil Nurse. Neville kissed Ron and Ron ran off to get his bearings. Hermione had an earlier run-in with the mother of a grammar-school-mate whose conversation left her with some interesting things to think about.

Please remember, I own this not! I only like to play with their figurines and draw naughty pictures (which have been banned on a rather "deviant" website that shall not be named). Yes, I'm still carping about that. If you'd like to check them out (and they are DEFINITELY NOT safe for work) then check out my live journal under azalea_nymph.

Thank you, everyone who has supported me through this terrible, trying time of having to move my naughty art to a private site and THANK YOU ever so much more for staying with me through this story! I love every single one of my reviews! Even the threats ;) :P

So, without further ado, and please accept my apologies for the delay, here is Chapter 20.

/

Hermione sighed into the empty kitchen of her parent's house, growing more and more heartsick by the moment, and set her teacup down into the white cast iron sink to wash up later. She caught her reflection in the window, a dark shadow in the backlit gloaming super-imposed over the evening garden view.

She didn't know which was worse, the reflection that looked like so much tangled crap, or that her father's once beautifully and carefully wild garden was now so very ascetic. With a little whimper, she squinted through the darkness to make out what used to be a rather gorgeously drooping hops vine but was now hacked back to the trellis.

It hurt to look at it. Daddy had put so much of himself into that garden and now it was ruined. Now it was...no. No, she'd not think of that, now. She'd not think of all the hundreds of poor choices she'd made in the past few years. Who'd have thought that so much could change so quickly? A few days ago, she'd been completely confident that she'd made all the right choices in her life, but now?

Dammit, this was getting her nowhere—

Marta's just wouldn't stop circling her brain. _'My capability has become my liability.'_

She stopped another sigh and instead turned stiffly away with a sharp inhalation, stomping off towards the living room. Once there, she looked around the painfully empty room full of nothing but inanimate, empty photographs and stolid furniture and dropped onto her mother's chenille sofa, rubbing her fingers over her face with a groan.

"What have I done?" _What's wrong with me?_ It wasn't clear which question was worse, but it was fairly certain she'd cocked things up rather well. She could easily elaborate upon the faults of all the other people involved, but really...when it came down to the line...

It really was all her fault. Her parents, Harry..._Severus_...

_'There's someone else, isn't there?'_

She made another non-descript noise into her hands and fell over onto her side, rubbing into the cushions, looking for some kind of comfort in her despair.

Really, she'd done all this to herself, hadn't she? This hadn't been quick. She'd let it build, slowly, over years and she'd not even paid attention to it. A broken sob and a sniffle slipped out of her. She was trying so hard not to just fall apart, but it was so _hard_. Especially when she was all alone like this.

What else could she have done? It was hard to think of her actions being any different than they had been, but what if she'd done things differently? What if she'd taken up more time with Harry, more time with Ronald? Again Marta's voice filtered into her head from their conversation that afternoon: _'I didn't need him, I took care of the house, the funds, the family...' _

Had she really ostracized everyone like that? The three of them had obviously been growing apart without her really seeing it, as she buried herself in the Foundation or research for Severus – which was a geas of guilt, anyway, after leaving him in the Shrieking Shack without checking his pulse. Why did she even do that? It was such a simple thing for her to have done? Hell, she'd even known how to make a portkey, so why hadn't she done that?

_'Who did you leave behind?'_

A tiny, rational part of her brain squeaked out that there was no way she could have known which side he was on at the time. Not until Harry told her about those memories...

But that was beside the point! What about common decency?

She scoffed at herself. Right. She, who was the height of common decency. If that were true, she'd have married Ronald, when he asked.

After the war, she supposed she should have accepted Ronald's proposal, or his family...she could have been at the Burrow right now instead of her parents empty shell of house.

_'There's someone else, isn't there?'_

She blearily cast her gaze around the haunted living room, full of her family's ghosts. God, this place, it was so horribly lonely!

What would her parents think of everything, now? Of her choices, her schooling? She'd not sat for her NEWTs...The Ministry had said they would gift them with honorary scores after what they'd been through—and at the time, she'd just wanted to move on with her life. But now? Now, no one wanted to hire her for anything without an actual certificate.

_'My capability has become my liability...'_

The only job she could get was bumming off her somewhat unapparent best friend. Not to mention that the job was simply an extension of her war efforts. It was like no one thought she could do anything else!

Oh, her mother would be so disappointed in the mess she'd made of her academic career! She could have gone into law, or research...and she hadn't researched the Magical Creatures Laws enough to protect Remus like she should have. What did that say about her? She loved Remus like an uncle. And what about poor Tonks and Teddy? Lord, would Teddy become a ward of the Ministry if both of his parents were taken to Azkaban? Harry would really never forgive her then ...not that she was in much favor, now...

_'He didn't leave you, you left him, right?'_

She cried out at the remembered pain of her fight with Harry and Remus. That had hurt, so very badly, to hear what he'd said, to see him turn against her like that. Maybe she'd not been one hundred percent on top of every issue, but honestly! What else could she have done! She'd done everything she could to get Severus out of that horrid place...

And Severus! She'd left Severus behind in the shack, didn't go back for him quick enough, didn't look for him hard enough afterwards...She didn't even know how he'd ended up at Hestry's. Or how long he'd really been there. Did he wake up to enemies? Alone? Frightened?

_'Who did you leave behind?'_

All of those letters between him and Dumbledore...he never once showed fear.

God, she couldn't think! Seeing his hair cut so short that first time behind that tiny window had been so heartbreaking, she knew she'd just have to get him out of there! She remembered Harry's and Remus' words. Had it been the right thing to bring him back to Grimmauld after Hestry's? Should she have taken him directly to St. Mungo's? She groaned into the sofa cushion, thinking about how she'd even screwed up a simple file retrieval from Tennet Hall and let Severus tag along – why had she done such a stupid thing? - then got him stuck with an obviously deranged nurse at the hospital...

She'd done nothing right! He nearly died that night and it was all her fault!

She cracked open one eye to rid its view of Severus on that gurney, and instead took in the mahogany fireplace mantle covered in half-empty pictures that had once been full of her pre-Hogwarts accomplishments and summer holidays.

She shut that eye tightly and curled in on herself, wanting to squeeze out the pain currently coursing through her body. What was worse than all of the litany of things clawing at her brain, worse than everything she'd done, was that she'd sent her own parents off without any idea of who she was. She'd modified their memories where they couldn't even remember they had a child. An awful idea formed in her mind: What if they'd looked into adopting? Or...or, well, they weren't young, but they weren't past the age they could try to have another child... If it were a girl, would they name her Hermione, too?

_'My capability has become my liability.'_

Her face screwed up in pain and she pressed it harder into the fabric of the sofa, wanting to scrub her horrible acts away from her mind's eye.

Oh, God! If only she'd paid more attention! Slowed down! Or at least _thought_ before assuming her plan was the best, the only recourse. The pain in her throat and behind her eyes finally gave way to the tears waiting to pour forth and she just let herself cry harder and harder into the sofa seat beneath her face, sobbing out her losses and failures.

Her day swirled around and around her brain, unrelenting in lashing at her conscience. Harry betrayed her, kicked her out...and Remus was mad at her...Ronald hadn't been around, but God, what if he took Harry's side? She hadn't even seen him since leaving him with Neville...and Neville told that awful woman not to let her in to see Severus! She'd needed to see him so badly this evening, if only to assure herself that there was one person left on this Earth that even wanted her company...and...and... "And I want Mu-u-ummy! I want my Daddy! Everything's just so...so _awful_!" She buried her face into the seat and let out several moaning cries that eventually bled into one low, raw scream of pain.

Her face was hot and she could feel the fingers of a headache reaching into her brain from her overwrought sinuses. The harder she cried, the more she wanted to and it was just such a mess! She couldn't figure out a way to fix anything and her brain was just...mud. She finally surrendered her thoughts with a wracking shudder and let her eyes stare, unfocussed, into the room until exhaustion claimed her.

It was for some time that she drifted in tears and whimpers on the sofa, finally falling into a weary sleep with a pale white light pulsing at the edges of her vision.

/

Her patronus grew agitated, still keeping its perch on Severus' chest. It started pawing at him, wriggling a bit, especially when the people around its target poured potion after potion down his throat.

It needed so badly to give its message. Everything would be alright if it could only give its message. Swirling around with a flick of its tail, it stood up, forcing the other people away.

Giving a cursory glance at those people and recognizing no need to speak to them, it looked back to its intended target and concentrated. Maybe it couldn't say its purpose with him asleep, but it could certainly do something to wake him up.

With a shiver of light, it jumped in the air, dispersing into something a little less solid and flew down into the man's open mouth and nose.

The little bit of Hermione's soul dove through the plain of this man's mind for the bit of his soul that would help.

/

"Astrid, go get more nutritive potions, please." Neville looked between his nurses and sighed. This was going to be a long night, getting Snape stable.

Muriel looked to him, worry evident in her expression as she nodded. "This is the best time to get them down and he needs them badly. I don't think Gladys fed him anything, or if she did, he refused to take it."

He turned his head away to the blank wall before looking down to Snape and the otter patronus sleeping on his chest. "I don't want to think about Gladys right now. She's dismissed at the end of her shift tonight."

His head nurse nodded with a gleam of satisfaction, then changed the subject, "What do you think about this, then?" She gestured to the bright mist between them.

He laughed a bit, a little unhinged. "That? I have no idea..."

They both shifted back a little as it swirled up to a stand and looked around. Neville looked to Muriel, "What about you?"

"I've never seen any Patronus hover this long. If they can't give their message, they usually try to—"

The both of them stepped a full length backwards as the patronus literally jumped inside Snape.

"Do that."

Astrid came rushing into the room with a handful of potions. Looking at their faces, she asked, "What? What did I miss?"

Neville's answer was interrupted by Snape bowing upwards from the middle, his mouth and eyes wide open in physical shock. They rushed him and each performed different diagnostics on his prone form.

"He's still out like a light."

"His heartbeat is improving."

"Right. Hand me those and I'll pour them in while he's open."

"Muriel, do you have his throat?"

"Got it."

"Merlin, it's like he's staring right at you."

"Get over it, Astrid, I need you steady tonight."

"There, that's the last of it. Mister Snape?"

"He's not going to answer you."

"Damn. He's dropped back down. Check his vitals again."

"Steady. Improving...rather rapidly."

Neville let out a sigh of relief and stepped around the bed to the open door. "Keep watch. I'm going to floo-call Hermione."

Astrid turned around in surprise, "What? Why?"

He nodded to Snape and replied, "That's her patronus. I want to know what she said to make it do that."

Astrid and Muriel exchanged wary looks as Neville left for his office.

Muriel spoke first, "I know what caused it, but I don't know if I should say."

"What? Well, you have to say, now."

She looked to the man lying unconscious before them, then back to Astrid, thinking over the ramifications of such a young girl sending such an emotion to this man. Her conscience swirled through her head as she debated revealing what she knew. It might not be received all that well... Then again, didn't this man need someone who needed him?

Muriel looked to Astrid again, took a shallow breath and stated, "She just..._needed_ him. Desperately, I'd say."

/

Neville knelt to his fireplace and threw in the sparkling powder, calling out "Grimmauld Place!"

Sticking his head in as soon as the flames turned green, he called out, "Hermione? _Hermione_?"

Tonks came into view. "Wotcha, Neville."

"Hi, Tonks. I need to speak with Hermione, can you get her for me?"

He was surprised at the closed expression on her face when she replied, "She's not here."

Damn! "Well, do you know when she'll be back?"

A male voice called out, "We don't."

Remus stepped into view, looking rather less friendly than normal. "Remus," he said, acknowledging his former professor before continuing. "Do you know where I can find her?"

Another person came into view—Harry. "No, we don't, and if you do find her, tell her...tell her to contact us. Please."

Neville looked at the three of them, with their somber expressions and tight words. Understanding flushed through him, along with panic. Without Hermione, would Snape awaken? He really felt like he needed her to come in and complete whatever it was she'd sent her patronus to do. He shifted on his knees and glared at them all. "What have you done? Why isn't Hermione there?"

Harry's green eyes sparked in anger. "Well, I'd have thought she'd come running to her precious Snape. Why isn't she there with you?"

Tonks turned and snapped, "Harry!"

"What? That's all she's been able to think about for the past few days, putting all of us in danger for it."

Neville interrupted, "What do you mean, danger?"

Harry responded flippantly, "Nothing. You know what? Never mind telling her anything. We can handle everything on our own."

Neville narrowed his eyes, wondering if Harry would ever grow up, and then what had gotten his knickers all twisty. He looked to Remus and Tonks, finally asking, "What's going on? Does this have to do with Snape's trial?"

Looks passed between the three of them before Harry snorted in disgust. "No, it has to do with her getting Law Enforcement called down on Remus for being a Werewolf."

Remus turned to Harry, "That's not exactly true-"

"Close enough!"

"Oi! Shut it, I'm tired of hearing it!" Tonks yelled over them both and they snapped around to look at her, but she turned back to Neville, "They all had an argument while I was feeding Teddy and Hermione left, upset." Harry muttered under his breath, but she continued, "We're not sure where she went, but I think _all_ of us," she sent a warning glance to her husband and Harry, who wouldn't meet her eyes. Then, when she was sure they weren't going to add in their two cents, continued, "Would like to make sure she's okay."

Neville and Tonks stared at each other for a moment. Just when he was about to speak again, someone came into view—Ah, Merlin, it was Ron. Neville gulped at the sight of him. Would he tell them all what went on at the Leaky?

"What's going on?" He looked around the three people standing in front of the fireplace, then down to the floo-caller. His face flushed as he stared at Neville, his expression entirely closed. Neville stared back for a moment, then looked back at Tonks.

"I'll let you know if I find her." Hastily retreating in a hurry to end the call, he reared up, knocking his head on the mantle, "Ow, bugger," then watched the green flames die out to ash.

Rubbing his head, he shifted up to a stand and made his way back to the HyPAC.

/

Ron looked a bit shocked to see Neville in the floo, but quickly turned around to look at Tonks. He asked again, "What's going on? What did he mean, 'if he finds her'? Where's Hermione?"

Harry snorted again and left the room, shaking his head.

"What's with him?"

Tonks and her husband watched Ron for a moment before Remus asked him, "Have you received anything from the MLE?"

The young man's face scrunched in confusion. "Me? No, but Hermione did when she was visiting Snape. Is that what this is all about? Is she upset? She'd said she was on her way here to check on you and see if you'd gotten anything."

Remus flushed at that. Tonks twisted her face in annoyance. Yeah, she figured. Stupid, stupid boys. She looked to Ron. "Yeah. Something like that. They argued and she left. Lots of door slamming. It took me the better part of the past hour to get Teddy and Walburga to stop screaming." Shaking her head in disgust, she left Remus and Ron to their own devices. "I'm going upstairs." She figured she'd need to look through the Foundation's records for any other addresses of Hermione's, starting with her parents.

/

The two men looked at each other, one in confusion, the other in resignation.

Ron spoke up, first, "I can't see Hermione leaving an argument like that. She'd normally just go off to the library or her room before coming back and yelling some more." He looked at the growing guilty expression on Remus' face. "Harry lost his temper, didn't he?"

Remus looked up in surprise, but came to his defense, "Well, he had a reason to be upset. They're looking to put me in Azkaban because of her little stunt yesterday."

The redhead reared back in surprise. "What? That doesn't—wait a minute. You told me this morning that it was Snape's accidental magic that caused the garden to explode. What did _she_ do?"

"She went and violated the Statute of Secrecy, that's what she did! It wasn't good enough to get Snape to blow up Sirius' garden, oh no! She had to go and let him blow up a Muggle facility! And now I'm being taken to review for not having sheep!" Looking away from Ron, he expressed his agitation by pacing.

Ron blinked in further confusion, "Um...I'm sorry, but, what?"

He looked back at Ron in something close to condescension. "I'm supposed to have a sheep farm to hide on when the moon gets full. Since I was here on the days of the full moon, Amos has taken it into his head that he can dredge up this ridiculous, medieval law to get the last of the known Werewolves into custody." He resumed his pacing, "The man's been on a bloody rampage since the end of the war, trying to make up for losing his son."

Ron turned his head to follow Remus, "I still don't get how this has anything to do with Hermione leaving."

Remus looked sheepish. He paused and ran a hand through his hair. "Harry...got a bit upset."

"Yeah, I can see that."

The older man winced and continued, "Well, he got it into his head that I'm the last of his family-"

"What?! Oh, blimey!" Ron's voice was low and unsteady at first, but quickly gained in volume in his anger. How could Harry have said such a thing? "He didn't—She—_Harry, what have you done!_" Ron yelled out the last part into the house, then ran in the direction he'd last seen Harry go. Running up the stairs two at a time, he was glancing into the open library doors as he collided with Harry in the hallway.

He did not look pleased. "What are you doing, yelling at me like that?"

Then again, there was a hint of guilt in his expression. Ron went on the offensive before Harry decided it was everyone else's fault but his, "Did you tell Hermione she wasn't your family?"

His chin went high and he crossed his arms, "I guess I did, yeah."

Ron shook his head, "You stupid arse. You forgot what she did to her family to go with us back in Seventh Year, didn't you?"

A wary expression started climbing up Harry's face, but Ron could see it was clamped down for self-righteousness, "It's not my fault she Obliviated her family. She's never even gone after them."

Ron's mouth hung open in shock. Was he really that thick? Harry should know more than anyone that family wasn't always about blood! "And why do you think that is, you idiot! Who's she been helping all this time? Who's been her family since then?"

"Well—" Harry visibly fought through Ron's logic and as soon as his words sunk in, he could see him visibly pale. He looked down to the floor, then back to the stairs before answering, "We have."

Ron let him chew on that for a bit, waiting for Harry's chivalry to kick back in.

It didn't take long. With a half-spin, a partial step and back, Harry finally showed his normal compunction to instantly fix things. He looked back to his best friend in despair, "Oh, shit, Ron, what have I done?"

"Yeah." Took him long enough.

"We have to find her. Now."

"Yeah."

"I feel like such an arse."

"Yeah."

"You don't have to rub it in."

Ron sighed and scrubbed his face with his right hand. "Yeah, I do. I can't believe you did that, Harry. She'll probably never forgive you, now. You know that, right? We've been the most important thing in her life for years and you go and pull this crap."

"God." He started pacing in a small circle, glancing at Ron every few moments. "Oh, God." All at once, he stopped and stared at him, resignation and determination running over his features. "Remus said she might have gone to her parents' house. Maybe we can find her there."

_Merlin's nightshirt! _Ron sighed and shook his head at Harry, "Oh, this just keeps getting worse, doesn't it?"

"What?"

"She went to her parents' house."

"And?"

He stared at Harry as if he were an idiot. Honestly, had he been hit with a Confundus Charm, or something? "Would _you_ want to be by yourself in your parents' house, all alone, called to trial, kicked out of your best friend's house and your boyfriend locked up in a nuthouse?"

Instantly a myriad of emotions flew over Harry's face as he took in what Ron was saying, running from regret to guilt to...well, he turned a little green, "No, I—oh, _ew_!"

"What, now?" What was he, a first year?

"You called Snape Hermione's boyfriend." Harry really looked like he was going to lose it on the runner carpet.

Ron sighed and rolled his eyes. "You're real mature, you are. After they've done what they've done, I imagine that's what they are, yeah." He gave absolutely no thought to what that might make him and Neville. Nope. None at all. It was not the same... Then again, how might Harry react to the news of Neville springing a kiss on Ron like that? He still didn't know all of how he felt about this afternoon, but he did know that it was his business and none of Harry's to like or dislike. It helped him put himself in Hermione's shoes, what with snogging Snape. Perhaps—

Harry interrupted his thought process with a weak protestation, "I don't think I want to know. No, I know I don't want to know." His eyes narrowed on Ron, "How can you be so calm about that?"

Ron looked at him with new eyes and thought about his response, thought about when Hermione refused his suit, about all the years they'd been the best of friends and how he just wanted to see her happy. Then he thought, again, about Neville's kiss at the Leaky and his long walk afterwards.

"I just...I think it's time we had some happy in our lives, that's all."

At that, he turned and started back down the stairs, leaving a quiet and confused Harry behind, standing in the hallway in front of the library doors.

/

Severus was swimming happily in the dark waters of his safe-place, staring up at the silver and gold trees as he floated on his back. It had been so long since he'd been here, relatively speaking, that he felt the long-awaited welcome of home. He breathed in the musty, earthy, wet air that reminded him so much of tranquility. Everything was imperfectly beautiful, here, just as nature should be. He closed his eyes for a moment and felt a breeze stir up. He opened his eyes again to see the bright yellow leaves surrounding the pond shake with its travel, loosening a few to twirl in the air down to the black water.

As the water sluiced across his skin, cool and comforting, he watched in amusement as a few of the leaves danced on a zephyr, somersaulting and careening above him as if for his own entertainment.

Soon, the light breeze picked up, blew stronger, spinning around his little wallow and rustling the leaves. He supposed he should be concerned for the change, but just as he thought about possibly being worried, his fairies came back.

Multicolored and transparent, they moved in an overlapping paperdoll cloud with the wind, laughter chiming all around like tiny bells and wood flutes.

These fairies were so...unique. So different. They called to him, dove at him, laughed as they flew and seemed so carefree. He longed to join them in their flight. How free they must feel! He smiled and thought that perhaps, in this safe place, he just might be able to fly with the mötly creatures. With that in mind, he swam to the small island in the middle and clambered up to the grass, up to the tree, up to the branches, and looked out.

He watched them fly around and around his safe place, with its barrier of birch trees standing sentinel. After a few turns, they veered off course, directly at him. He braced himself in the crux of two branches and waited for the onslaught.

As they reached him, they dispersed in a cloud of tinkling laughter, surrounding him in a fluttering tornado of color. They beat at him softly, with the impact of feathers or silk. He laughed, feeling slightly weightless, the feeling growing the more they spun around him.

In no time at all, he was with them, flying.

Feeling stronger and more in control than he'd done in years, perhaps decades, he pushed his flight to where he was leading the cloud of fairies. They chased after him with happiness and he led them around and around, spinning ever faster until he came around to them again. They all had a laugh as he tried to reach out to touch them...

And then he was drifting down. Downwards to the dark water and a giant leaf that looked to catch him. He landed gently in the leaf and felt it's leathery surface to be cool and comfortable. A smile fixed on his lips as he relaxed into his new watercraft and let it take him in more turns about his happy, safe place.

Peace overflowed him and he felt...more as he should be. He felt...whole. He looked over and saw the dead oak in the middle of the island, the one where all those eyes used to live and sparkle so brilliantly. It started to bloom. Impossibly, the oak tree began to bloom with large, exotic flowers in shades of blue, green and gold.

He watched in wonder and was about to attempt climbing out of his leaf-boat when the sound of rushing water caught his ears. Turning to the right, he saw something else new. A tributary had broken through the barrier of birches and was pulling the current with it. Before he could even attempt escape, he was pulled along, down a colonnade of gold and silver. It was actually quite the pleasant journey. The trees canopied above him and as he drifted, he could hear the call of small birds hidden amongst them.

After a few bends in the stream, the trees started to change.

He was more curious than concerned.

Cypress and oaks dripping with spanish moss festooned his passage, now. The call of birds changed to the creaking of cicadas and he could feel the water change temperature beneath him. It was no longer a pleasant cool, but nearly as warm as his body. The autumn smell of decaying leaves from back at his safe place was replaced with something spicy, something...his nostrils twitched as he tried to understand what he was smelling. It was rich, wet earth...it was an acrid spice of damp moss. There was something floral on the wind...jasmine or wild roses.

It intrigued him. Was this a part of his mind? If so, why had he never been here before?

With an interruptive flash, the leaf-boat transformed beneath him into a salt-glazed pottery bowl. He wondered at its ability to float, but then realized he was sitting on a bed of very warm, white, sparkling sand that looked curiously like sugar. He dropped his hand to touch it, feel it's unbelievable texture. Smooth and light, it didn't stick or scratch like he'd thought sugar would. It was a strange feeling, the soft, grainy warmth beneath his bum and the cold, smooth pottery at his back. As his craft followed the current, he found himself in the middle of an immense body of water surrounded by a swamp. Or, at least, what he could figure was a swamp. He'd been to a forest like the one in his safe place, but nothing like this. He'd never seen so many cypress trees in his life.

He looked around the area as the bowl began to spin slowly. It bobbed and wobbled as it hit a cypress knee here and there, but overall, he felt safe. Comfortable. The sugar beneath him was warm and the bowl started to warm from the swampy black water. Finally, he reached the center and looked up. The trees' canopy filled his vision but for one bright spot directly above him. The moon.

It was so bright and full, it reminded him of cold, wintery nights in Scotland. He gave a shiver and in response, amazingly, the moon wavered and began dropping warm sugar on him from above. He still hadn't figured out if it actually _was_ sugar, but that was the closest description his mind could offer. It was light, glowing and brilliant. It was crystalline, but soft and caressing. It was so very warm...

He lifted a few granules to his mouth to taste it. Yes, slightly sweet, but not the sweetness he'd come to expect from sugar. Hmm. No matter. This was his mind, his sanctuary, right? If he wanted to give himself a sugar bath, then so be it.

He lay back and let it cascade over him, filling the bowl to his shoulders in warmth. He shifted to allow the moon's sugar to displace behind him and support his back. "Ahhhh."

Now this was comfort. He was completely suspended in warm, sugary sand and it, in turn, baked his bones and chased away all his bodily aches and pains. He groaned in pleasure and looked up as the moon shone brilliantly, once more.

He sat there in contentment for a while, until, at last, something caught his eye on shore and his gaze darted quickly to follow. Something silvery and slightly blue in the humid haze surrounding him shimmered like light through the thick vines and trees. One moment it was visible, then it blinked out...almost playing with his eyesight.

After a time, he noticed the light became more consistent, more solid. It also stayed within one location, where he focused with a slight bit of trepidation. Here he was, immersed and nearly buried in whatever it was that had poured from the moon and he was completely unable to move. He looked around. Well, at least he was out in the middle of the water and this water wasn't as easily swimmable as it was back in the golden bower. Cypress knees and water plants choked most of the water's surface.

Severus looked back up to the shore when the light stopped moving and the sight took his breath away.

There, surrounded, engulfed, enshrouded in patronus light, was Hermione...naked for his eyes to feast upon.

His mouth dropped open and he stared unabashedly at her soft, curvy form. She was, for lack of a better term – and he prided himself on his mastery of the English language – perfect. From her wild, springy curls caressing her defiantly squared shoulders, to her lush breasts peaking in the silvery mist dancing about her, to the dark triangle of hair hiding between her perfectly curved hips and legs...even down to her delicately turned ankles...she was perfectly beautiful to him.

The silvery mist swirled around her, lifting up to form a shape above her head, that of an otter. She smiled at it, encouraging it, and it did a spin before leaping into the air, sailing quick as light towards him.

He leaned back a bit, wondering at the impact of a patronus, but it stopped, perfectly still, in front of him. Standing on all four paws on the sugar in front of his chest, it leaned forward, nearly caressing him, and whispered with numerous, overlapping voices, "S-severus-s, I neeh-need youhhh".

With a thump from his heart, he blinked and realized the patronus had dissipated, leaving him a bit shocked. She needed him? Need was such a strong word...what if this was his own mind, telling him what he wanted instead of the truth? Immediately, he sought the shore where Hermione had been.

He looked again...where was she? Turning as much as the sugar would let him, he tried to look around and see if perhaps she'd walked along the shore.

Damn.

Well, it would have been nice to enjoy her company in his mind, even if he was hallucinating patronuses and women.

A splash lit the surface of dark water to his right, about ten meters out, and he spun his head to catch it. All he could see were ripples arcing outwardly between bits of wood. He scanned the water for any other disturbances and was quickly rewarded with another splash, and what looked like skin, breaking the surface closer to him.

His bowl moved.

Just a slight rocking, but it was enough to warn him. He desperately sought a way to pull out of the sugar and started slowly shifting against the weight of it.

A hand shot out of the water and grabbed the rim of his bowl. His heart was beating madly at the feeling of being caught while accosted, but...he knew that hand, didn't he?

Yes...Hermione. After the hand, came another, then her arms and her water-slicked and tangled hair.

He watched in amazed anticipation as her face turned up and he could finally see those eyes. Brown Eyes. She'd come for him.

The idea was immediately exciting.

He sat back in the sugar as she climbed over the rim of the bowl, strangely not tipping them over. As she reached the mound of sugar atop him, she settled on her hands and knees, much like her patronus had, and leaned into him. Her breasts hung beneath her and he wanted so badly to reach out and feel them. He felt the slight pressure of her weight through the sugar and looked up to her.

She leaned closer and their lips met in gentle dominance. She pressed in, from above him, and purred into his mouth. He gave over to her and wanted desperately to reach out and hold her luscious form to him, but the sugar...

The barrier between them melted away into a thick, gaseous...well, he couldn't tell if the lit mist between them was liquid or gas...or both. It felt like silk, like her lips, like warm happiness and he found he could reach her. She sank down amidst the silvery fog to straddle his legs, adjusting herself to sit slightly in front of his pulsing erection. They broke apart to smile and breathe, but he quickly pulled her soft body against his, reveling in the contrasting textures and lush curves. She reached up to kiss him again and he welcomed her mouth's slick heat, taking his time with finding just the right friction between teeth and tongues and lips.

She purred again, and he ventured to run his hands up over her back, then back down again to her buttocks. Would she let him...? Hell, this was his mind, he could do as he damned well pleased. With a growl of his own, he pulled her hips forward to meet the heat of his cock, then shifted her up to let it drop down beneath her. Sitting her back down, he rocked his hips forward and rubbed his hardness against her hot, wet core.

He broke his mouth away from hers in a passionate groan and looked down to her face. It was...it looked drugged. She looked like he was the finest, most expensive narcotic and she'd never be able to get enough. As he drank in that most beautiful expression, she rocked her hips and he nearly slipped into her wicked quim.

Their breathing increased exponentially and they stared deeply into each others eyes. She bit her lip, cocked her head, and twirled her hips again. He threw his head back as his sensitive tip dipped up into her. He pistoned upwards in reaction and found...unbelievable heat. Clenching his teeth and digging his fingers into her hips, he pistoned slowly up and up and up into her soft, tight quim, feeling it clench around him exquisitely.

She cried out and he looked at her. Her face was ashock with passion, her cheeks inflamed and her lips parted as she panted her emotions into the humid air. Hermione...Hermione... he had to say it aloud, "Hermione."

She responded in kind, "S-severus-s". She spoke in that far-off, overlapping voice of her patronus, "I neeh-need youhhhh."

He should have been shaken out of his desire at that, but somehow, it made his lust bake through his veins, carmelizing into his cock as it pressed higher, harder into her. She cried out again and dropped down to meet his thrusts. The tiny rim of muscles fluttered around him and held tightly as they separated, only to meet again, slow thrust after slow, agonizingly delicious thrust. Hermione pressed her face into his shoulder, turning her lips to his neck, and he turned his head to press against hers as she nibbled and licked in counterpoint to his rocking.

Lifting a hand, he pushed her hair out of the way and laved the shell of her ear, moving the other hand to cup a breast.

Oh, how lovely was that breast. It was plump and giving, silken and heavy in his palm. He rolled it slightly to get her nipple between his fingers, chuckling darkly at her mewl in pleasure when he rubbed the delicate tip up and down.

She increased the pace of their joining, apparently impatient and driven by his advances. He grabbed a fistful of her curls and pulled her face up to meet his in a hard, open kiss. He didn't care if their teeth clicked, he just wanted to taste her, breathe in her air, be with her as she fucked him in his mind.

With each thrust, he could feel electricity spike down his spine faster and faster in an attempt to close the current between them. Would they light up their little haven when he made her come? Stroking and climbing the peak of his passion, he kissed her harder, massaging her scalp with one hand and her breast with the other.

A slight keening breathed into a suction of silence as she scaled to reach her own climax, her eyes widening blindly. He drove harder and harder, watching the spark of her lust burn into a conflagration above him. It was heady to watch, to know he'd done this to her, but too soon, his own lightning crashed down through him, hurtling him to join her in bright, blinding release.

It was a sated moment then that he felt her flit away from him on the breeze. In sluggish alarm, he reached for her.

"S-severus-s, I neeh-need youhhh."

Her voice was all around him, above him, inside him and her patronus coalesced from moonbeams. They stared at each other for a moment, then the otter bounced once, twice, then jumped right into him.

With a shock, he awoke in a blank, gray room with glowing corners. Where the hell..._what_ the hell..._how_? He looked around, marvelling briefly when the movement didn't cause him pain. Two women stood huddled against each other and staring at him as though he were about to jump up at eat them.

One looked up and he followed her, looking to the ceiling at a form at once familiar and unbelievable. Her patronus was here. It was looking at him with it's little otter face and twitched before swirling down to be level with him.

That previous encounter in what was apparently his mind made him wary enough to lean back.

It stopped just shy of touching him and delivered it's message: "Severus. I need you." At that, it dispersed, only to reform outside the door, waiting with an expectant look. The room's three occupants started at it in shock.

The women because he'd wager he'd been dead asleep and woke quickly, not to mention the strange behavior of a rare patronus. Him, well, he was left with a growing and eating urge to find Hermione. She needed him. Without a doubt, she was calling to him and something happened to join them in his mind. He stared at the patronus in suspicion, then in dawning realization that it could take him to her.

Eyeing both women and the patronus, he gingerly sat up and placed his feet on the ground. He surveyed his body and found that he felt more whole, more completely himself than he'd done in years. With a smirk to the healers, and a quick scan of his amazingly intact magic, he launched himself off the bed, into the hallway and out a nearby window in flight, Hermione's patronus gamboling about him like a puppy.

He glanced back at the damaged window and saw a man and the two women peeking out of it to find him somewhere on the pavement beneath. He smirked and followed his lead north and west.

Black smoke and silver twined and darted through the air like moonlight and bats. Severus watched the city spin by as the lights became more separate the further he traveled. It felt...free. Amazing. Fantastic to be flying again. He felt like his old self, again, only this time...

He smiled at the patronus darting off to a rather nice suburb and followed.

Only this time, he really was free. His mind flitted to the court case, the publicity of his return and couldn't much bring himself to care.

They neared a darkened house and the patronus shot off to hit the front door, finally and completely dispersing into the night. He landed in front of that door and wondered if he should just open it. Hmm. Perhaps Hermione wasn't aware of his pending arrival? It might be prudent to make her answer the door. With that decision, he rang the doorbell, a simple double-chime inherent in most homes, and waited.

/

Hermione woke with a start, vaguely remembering a very heated and delicious sex-dream. She ran her fingers over her face and looked to the clock on the mantle. It was getting late, perhaps she needed to just go to bed. Should she use her old room or her parent's bed? On second thought, it was too weird to use her parent's bed. Then again, she wasn't the little girl who liked to be surrounded by unicorns and fairies, anymore. Not now that she knew what they were really supposed to look like.

She sat up, slowly, and immediately felt the full wetness between her legs. Oh, wow, that must have been some dream! Perhaps it was what she needed after such a breakdown and her subconscious simply supplied it. She sat there, contemplating re-enacting parts that she could remember with her parent's large whirlpool and an active imagination, but was shocked into place as a loud '_whump'_ hit her door.

Standing up on shaky legs, she made her way partly across the living room before the doorbell rang.

She looked to the clock again and wondered who the hell would be arriving on her doorstep at ten o'clock at night?

Anger drove through her skull at the thought of Harry coming to beg her back. Well, he could just shove it, but it would be ever so much more satisfying to yell it in his face and slam the door. Assuming she'd be doing just that, she stalked over through the foyer, to the front door, and swung it wide.

Without looking, she snarled, "Harry, if you think you can just-"

"A-hem."

She blinked and looked... "Severus?" Her face must have been blazing, she was blushing so much. First at her mistaking his identity, then as memories of her previous dream came flooding back. And flood was right. Dear Lord, she'd have to change her knickers.

_'Someone who makes your blood race every second you think about him.' _

He smirked down at her and raised an eyebrow, "May I come in?"

Vague thoughts ran through her head of a vampire having to ask permission to come inside, but this was Severus. She shook herself out of her surprise and reached for his hand to pull him inside. Looking out into the street to see no one there, she closed the door swiftly and turned to drink in the sight of him.

"How are you here?"

His smirk grew into an adorable, lopsided grin, "Would you believe me if I said a little otter brought me?"

Her mind cast about blindly for what he meant until remembering her patronus from earlier. But how? Her patronus was never that strong...well, except it _had_ been particularly bright this evening, hadn't it? She blinked a few times, trying to figure out the logistics. He couldn't have apparated with it...and there was no portkey, although that would explain the '_whump_' noise she'd heard earlier.

She shook her head. "But how did you get here?"

He moved in closer to her, roving his eyes across her face. He was so close, she could breathe and touch him with her body. He smiled a small smile, tightening at the corners of his mouth, really. "Me?"

She nodded, noticing that he didn't look nearly as pale or skinny as he had earlier today. Had they given him something to rejuvenate him? His response brought her gaze back to his,

"I flew."

Well. Of course, he did. Why hadn't she thought of that? Good God, he flew? With no broom? She thought back and definitely didn't see one outside...

Then again, Minerva had told her about the Snape-shaped hole in one of the upper corridor windows.

The thought was fantastic enough to throw her off track for a bit. She took a deep, slow breath and thought again about what he'd said about the otter. Apparently, her patronus led him here? What an amazing sight that must have been!

Keeping her questions to herself as soon as she saw That Look in his eye – she must have looked like she was about to wave her hand in the air – she offered, "Can I get you anything?"

He seemed a bit taken aback by her abrupt change in subject, and stood silently, looming above her in the dark foyer. His hands came up to her elbows, then slid up her arms and across her shoulders to her neck, fitting her head between his hands neatly.

They stared at each other, just breathing in the moment. She shivered.

Slowly, he bent his head down to kiss her, gently at first until her body complied and melted against him. Then, to her happiness, he deepened the embrace into a harder, more demanding display of affection.

Just as she was ready to pull him into the living room and onto the sofa, he pulled back and tilted his head at her.

"Actually, there is one thing."

She waited, watching the difference between his velvety lips and midnight eyes.

He must have taken note of her fascination, for he tipped his forehead to hers and took a shaky breath. "I'd like a bath."

Her mouth opened in wonder, immediately thinking back to her dream and what she'd planned on doing to alleviate her body after that fantasy, but then practicality kicked in. He probably did want a real bath after years of charms and showers.

She smiled at him, noting his eyes followed her as she moved to pull him down the hallway and into her parent's bathroom. She let go of his hand to hastily pick up her discarded clothing from earlier and tump it into the hamper nearby, then turned to him.

"Well. Here we are. I'm...um." They stood there, looking at each other, and damned if she couldn't get a clear understanding of what his expression was. Did he mean for her to just show him the way? Maybe he just wanted some privacy.

Her confidence wavered and she beat a hasty retreat, "I'll just...be down the hall if you need me."

"Hmm."

She smiled briefly over her shoulder and practically ran from the bathroom. Oh God, she wanted him so badly! She heard the plumbing creak and water rush by through the wetwall as he turned on the faucet and her mind drifted again to her dream. He was in the middle of a dark pond, sitting in a white, round boat or something and looked as if he hadn't a care in the world.

She wanted that for him. She wanted even more _from_ him, but even with this morning, she couldn't be sure he wanted to move that quickly. Standing in the hallway and listening to him splash into the tub wasn't helping, either. She debated whether to go make herself some coffee or just sit down and attempt to get lost in the television, when both of the doors between him and her suddenly flew open.

She looked over in surprise and heard him call out, "Hermione?"

Her heart sped up and she leaned on the wall for a bit, thinking about seeing his naked body.

"Hermione? Could you come here, please?"

One foot betrayed her, then another, as she slowly made her way towards the open bathroom door. Steeling herself, she stepped just inside the bedroom and called back to him, "What is it?"

There was a pause, then in a rather amused tone of voice, he responded, "Come here."

Some small part of her that was still a student that would respond immediately to the authoritative teacher moved without a thought and stepped round the corner, into the beige-tiled bathroom. "Yes?"

He really was naked and Oh, Lord and Lady, he was completely, beautifully nude.

He held out a hand cloth, dripping wet from his bath and sat up a bit so she could see the water running down his chest, making small rivulets between his chest hairs. She stared at his nipples. Why was she staring at his nipples? They were brown, like old pennies. She wanted to lick them. Would they taste coppery?

"Hermione?"

"Yes?"

He held out the cloth again, this time with a broad, sexy smirk. "Wash my back. Please."

Her knees threatened to melt away at his request. Even further, at that smirk directed at her. Oh, she was in such trouble...

(To be continued!)


	21. Chapter 21

_Author's Note: Recap time!_

_Up til now: It's been four days in the story and three days between our favorite couple. It is evening, heading into night, and Snape has been awakened by Hermione's patronus after being administered recovery potions during a sort of magical backlash coma. During this little stint, Hermione's been hurting badly from her fight with Harry and Remus. They all yelled at each other, she left, Ron and Tonks lectured the boys and Hermione took the tube and then walked to her parent's home, nearly getting arrested along the way for vagrancy. So, after reminiscing and worrying, she decides she needs comfort in the form of her new relationship with Severus, goes to the hospital, only to be thwarted by Gladys the Ebil Nurse, forcing Hermione to send off her Patronus to Severus, calling out only, "Severus, I need you." Dream sex ensues, Sevvie wakes up and jumps out the window (ha!) to fly after her patronus, which leads him to her doorstep with a "whump!" They're now in Hermione's parents master bathroom and he's just asked her to come wash his back. Enter: Yummy "M"ness._

_Seriously, guys, this is my gift to those of you patient with me. This chapter is Just Sex. :3 I feel like we're getting close to the end here, so I promise more to come! I just won't promise when!_

_Oh, and axilla is another word for armpit. I just can't use the word "armpit" successfully in a sexy scene. Can't._

* * *

><p><span><strong>Chapter 21<strong>

Severus gazed at the trembling witch leaning against the wall of the bathroom and sat back in the overlarge tub with a satisfied sigh. "Come here," he called, crooned, invited to the now-shy young woman who had been so very forward with him this morning. He held out a wet hand, water slipping down his forearm to drip off his elbow back into the wonderfully hot water.

She still seemed reluctant, despite the obvious lust running fast across her features, so he beckoned again and once more said, "Come, Hermione. Help me wash my back. I find my limbs do not wish to cooperate with the flexibility required to wash all of me as yet. I require assistance."

That got her moving towards him with a small smile, pushing off the wall and taking the wet cloth from him when he offered it. He did not miss her blatant regard for his nudity, and went so far as to tease her with shifting forward to rest his arms across his knees, now bent up out of the bath.

She took the wet cloth, dipped it back into the water beside him and ran it across his back as she sat on the deck of the tub. "Well, you certainly seem to have regained your vocabulary."

He smirked over his shoulder at her, "I've regained a great many things." He groaned at she flattened out the cloth and with her hand, massaged his back in deep, circular motions. Oh yes, one regained item in particular was making itself known beneath the water, enjoying the currents of warmth swirling around the sensitive thickness. Something down low clenched at the thought of having _Hermione's_ warmth swirling around his thickness. He dropped his head as her hand pushed up to his neck and pressed her fingers into the taut tendons there.

"Merlin, that feels good. I'll give you about thirty minutes to stop that."

She giggled, low and quietly, but her other hand came up to meet its sister and the washing cloth was forgotten, dropped to the water in favor of using her bare hands. His breath came sharply, enjoying the feel of her smooth, tiny digits rolling so adroitly along his shoulder muscles and slipping up into his hair.

"It's gotten longer."

He cracked open an eye to look and verified that yes, his hair had grown back a few inches. A dark, wilting fringe hung past his eyes. He had wondered when his personal magic would kick in and regrow his hair. It had been the bane of his mother's scissors when he was growing up, that it would not stay cut. Even the modification of a slicing hex couldn't keep it from it's preferred shoulder length.

Not wanting to revisit any of the uncomfortable, personal matters that attempted address only a few hours ago, he pushed all thoughts of his past and parents into the very back of his brain, hoping for a pleasant distraction with Hermione before facing those issues. He knew they would need attention, or he'd never be able to fully recover, that only made sense. What made even more sense now, though, was taking this opportunity presented to him to enjoy time with this witch that had devoted effort and attention to him, that had tried to protect him...that needed him.

It was an amazing thing, to feel truly needed. Yes, Dumbledore and Voldemort had made him feel needed, in his capacity and position of espionage...but they'd not needed _him_ to do all that. He could have very easily offed himself many times over—had indeed attempted it—only to be thwarted by obligation, by another's convenience. They had needed him because he'd made himself useful to their purposes, nothing more. Anyone could have done what he'd done, really.

Hermione must have felt something like this, something of being needed only because of her usefulness. How many times had he listened and watched as she'd planned, informed, even mothered her friends as necessity required? Those nitwits she'd aligned herself with so early on in life must surely have outgrown their need for her, by now. Why else would she be here, in the outskirts of what could barely be called London, instead of in the heart of it at Grimmauld Place? Obviously something had happened for her to...

Oh...right. The garden.

Well, then.

Surely they'd not kicked her out because of that? What kind of imbecile would...? Well, he supposed he should consider those of whom he was thinking. And now, here she was, all alone in what must surely be her peculiarly absent parents' house. He knew from his own past, that might not be an appropriate subject, especially considering the inkling of remembrance that she'd relocated her parents during the war.

So that left him wondering what made the difference in her from this morning to this afternoon? What had made her come barreling back up to the hospital, and be denied access to the point where she needed to send him a patronus? A patronus that had said only, 'I need you'.

Granted, the resulting need for that patronus to awaken him was quite...well, satisfactory, but even the heady knowledge of her need for him hadn't abated the question of '_why_'.

Here was a young, vibrant woman that needed him, apparently simply for what he could be to her. She needed a part of him, not some service he or anyone else could do for her, and that possibility felt so very gratifying.

That she wanted him, in many senses of the word, was evident and yet another thing to be grateful for. He had no doubt in his mind that her patronus showed him exactly what she needed: comfort. Love. She needed to feel that she was needed, too, and if that was the only thing that could keep her to him? For now, that was enough. It was enough to build a sensory addiction between them, and that was the plan forming in his mind.

He needed to seduce her senses, grow her addiction to himself, so that neither of them would be alone anymore. It didn't sound noble or right, but at that moment, he really didn't care for anything other than making himself happy. He deserved it, didn't he? And if her needs and his collided into something pleasant, who was he to argue?

Her hands were gliding across his shoulders, squeezing the tightly roped muscles joining at different angles there. She seemed content to continue this, but he wanted to encourage her into something more. Reaching up with one of his hands, he took hold of the opposite of hers and pulled it forward, around his neck and onto his chest.

Her fingers stilled when his hand held hers at the divot of the base of his throat. Only after he moved his hand away did she shift her thumb into that divot, caressing it ever so lightly as her other fingers slid slowly across his sternum.

Contact. Real, human contact. This was what he craved, what he _needed_. Carefully, he leaned back and rested his head on her thigh, and almost sat back up at her sharp inhalation of breath were it not for her stilling hand on his chest.

"No, you can lay back. I was just surprised, is all."

Trying to ascertain the source of her surprise, he looked down himself and realized his erection was clearly visible from this angle and was bobbing happily up from between his spread legs beneath the water. She leaned down, slid her wet fingers down his chest to his stomach and inhaled again when his cock reacted accordingly. Those sweet, nimble fingers of hers stopped just shy of his navel and her cool hand spread open to explore the pale skin of his abdomen, softly gliding back up to beneath his breast – a heretofore unknown sensitivity. All the hard, spare flesh of his torso trembled in shock at the electric relays railing along his nerves from something so simple, yet so unknown, as an intimate touch.

His brain was quickly becoming overloaded in sensory perception. He could feel her breasts press against the top of his head, a soft, pliant, silken pillow. Perversely, he turned his head slowly side to side until his nose came to rest against the silk encasing her arm. She stopped the light sifting of his chest hair and he realized her mouth was directly above his forehead. He could feel her breath fanning against his fringe and his lips parted, their wetness sticking to the cloth of her sleeve. She tilted her head down a bit more to make eye contact and once their eyes did meet, he held her gaze and, with his open mouth and nose, nuzzled against the inside of her arm through the silk. His canine tooth caught out from under his lip and dug into her soft flesh.

Not a moment later, her hand came up his throat and tipped his face to hers. Her eyes sparkled darkly as they took in his own midnight gaze, then came closer, leaning farther in for a light, slow, breathy kiss upon his lips.

Water splashed as his hands came immediately up to hold her head in place so he could more thoroughly respond. The deeper their kiss went, the more his blood raced and the tighter he held. Apparently he'd held a bit too tightly, for the next he knew, she'd lost her balance and ended up sideways, with one hand landing beside him on the floor of the tub. Their kiss broke with laughter as they tried to get Hermione back upright.

He'd nearly turned around to help her, but by the time she was sitting, she quickly moved to standing and he simply watched as she started to undress. He enjoyed the show, watching each delicious slope and curve revealed to him with equal parts teasing and alacrity. She smiled and he smiled back, an act that felt strange on his face, but easy, nonetheless. His left hand wandered to his cock and as she bent over to make short work of her knickers, he grasped it firmly, squeezing once, tightly. His eyes shuttered and his lips parted as she slowly stepped out of the undergarment and turned to face him. Every delicious muscled curve led straight up to the apex between her thighs—that dark, blushing core of her that opened like pages or petals or profundity before him. He couldn't help but pull on his thickened cock, every muscle in his body jerking once at the feeling of his finger pads grazing against the head.

She saw what he was doing and set her hands on the deck to lean in and watch. Her eyes took him in slowly and moved up to his face, her unclad breasts hanging so sweetly, so succulently between her arms. A nipple peeked out from behind an arm, sliding against the soft skin of it and he pulled hard again, groaning softly into the humidified air between them.

Amazingly, stunningly, one of her hands left the deck and moved to her own body, starting at her breasts and teasing one nipple to a tightly furled peak as he watched. He continued masturbating to the sight of her, leaning his head back against the rim and bringing his other hand over to cup his balls, pulling them slightly to try and stave off his quickly impending ejaculation.

Hermione, however, was even more emboldened by this sight. She slid that hand down her beautifully curved stomach, down, down between her legs, parting her thighs by walking her legs apart. There she stood, leaning over the tub and watching him masturbate, as she showed off every single Circe-blessed curve she had and ran those soft fingers through her own dark and humid curls. The second he heard her soft moan, he was done.

"Fuck," was all he could say, in frustration, in irony, in completion as his ejaculate spurted into the warm water and floated to the surface. "Damn it." He dropped back to relax into the tub, defeated by his imposed celibacy.

She merely smiled at him, a warm smile that he probably didn't deserve, and turned to scrounge through her clothing. Well, he supposed that was that, then. She'd get dressed and leave him be in the cooling bathwater. He closed his eyes so he could at least retain the image of her leaning over the tub in her lovely nudity a little while longer, but snapped them back open when he heard the tell-tale sound of a spell being released from a wand.

His panicked gaze searched around for what she'd done, finding nothing except that her wand was poised over the bathwater—or more directly—over his sated penis. Alarm swept through him until he realized she'd only rid the water of his ejaculate, nothing more (that he could tell). Relaxing a small fraction, he finally realized she was still—beautifully—nude.

Watching in perplexity as she placed her wand on the tub deck, he was amazed when she braced herself on the ledge and started climbing into the water with him. He sat up, shifting his legs about to accommodate her feet, and before he knew it, she was standing before him like a shorter-haired, less modest Aphrodite.

His hands itched to slide up those curvy legs of hers, but before he could do so, she started down towards him, kneeling in the water between his legs.

They watched each other, quietly contemplating the next move fated between them. He could feel the steady thread of his heartbeat against the scar tissue of his neck and even as he thought it, her eyes dropped to that scar.

Amazing that only yesterday, he'd been absolutely livid with her even glancing at it, but today...so much had changed in so short a time period. He was astounded that having his full memory awakened made that much of a difference in his opinion of her, and was slightly ashamed at his reaction to her now that he knew she'd been a very recent student of his.

That shame, paired with the evidence before him that they were up to something very completely beyond a student-teacher relationship, created a deviant need to go further, to keep pushing their boundaries. To find what, he had no idea, but he surely wanted to continue and that was both exciting and bothering him. There was much of this scenario that should have been forbidden, and yet here they were.

As he reasoned his way back to the moment, Hermione slowly came toward him, placing a careful hand to the side of his hip. He watched her, almost detachedly, as she continued forward to place a very light, feathery kiss upon his scar. He inhaled and tilted his head back to allow her access, wondering why he was letting her do this. It felt...nurturing...caring...he didn't have words to describe the weirdness of affection that poured through him at this tiny touch. She simply breathed and he swallowed. Her nose and lips danced lightly along his jawline, seeking the different textures along his throat, and it sent zips and pings of sensation through his body.

He shuddered, his hands sliding up her arms to cap her shoulders and spread his fingers along her collarbone, doing as she had when she'd caressed his jugular notch. Her mouth opened against the corner of his jaw and she breathed a low sigh just under his ear. His hands traveled farther, up into the loose curls of her bushy hair, and cupped her head between his hands, pulling her mouth up to meet his.

Their kiss was again and at first a meeting of closed mouths, each reveling in the texture of the other's lips against their own. Small movements, mouth to mouth, breathing in each other's life, encouraged the embers between them to smolder and flare brightly, searching for the next bit of desire to consume.

Severus' hands started a journey, mapping out the contours of Hermione's back and sides, teasing just beneath her axilla and scraping his fingernails so very lightly against the sensitive skin at her obliques. Her mouth opened in another shuddering sigh and he pressed advantage, delving his tongue lightly into her sweet mouth and pulling her closer. She stumbled slightly, but solved her balance by slipping her knees astride his hips, settling back onto his thighs and bringing her wet, warm hands up his torso, across his chest, to pluck lightly at his nipples.

He growled and palmed her breasts in his seeking hands, kneading and rolling the plump weights before abrading the tips with his palms. Her head rocked back with a gasp, and he dipped his head to kiss her sternum at the tempting valley between her breasts, nuzzling the soft skin there and breathing in the heady scent of woman. He pressed her breasts up and against his cheeks, groaning into the soft cleft and turning his head to bite lightly into the left one. Suckling his palmed delight down to the areola, he smiled at her stuttered gasp when he licked and mouthed the nipple, sucking the tip into the heat of his mouth.

Her body was arched backwards, her hands searching for purchase, finally latching onto his calves and searching down to his feet. The sensation was unusual, but tantalizing, as her fingers slipped between his toes and clenched as if it were his hand. He had no earthly idea that his feet could be so erogenous and his cock reared fully to life beneath her honeyed quim.

She obviously felt his reaction and started twisting those agile hips of hers, but he untangled his arms from around her to grab hold of her buttocks, pulling her body upwards as he kissed his way down the indentation leading to her navel. Her fingers loosed themselves from weighing on his toes, then clasped onto his ankles in an effort to brace herself more upwardly into his mouth.

He took the hint and after a brief sip at her midriff, he shifted their bodies to accommodate giving his mouth access to her depths unknown.

A short keen left her as soon as his heavy tongue lapped once and surely up her labia to the protruding hood hiding her ecstasy. Eager to hear more such sounds from her, he sucked the naked hood between his pursed lips and searched for her clitoris with the tip of his tongue.

Her body jerked, at once too sensitized and too eager for more. Her hands faltered on his ankles and fell to the tub floor as she arched even higher into his mouth.

He feasted on her pleasure, pulling more sound from her, more jerks and falters from this woman that tried to very hard to be grace, perfection, poise. It was satisfying to see that poise melt away in his mouth, bringing her down to his level, so to speak. Everything he'd ever known about her formed in his mind and felt happy that she was human, after all, and that he was the one to show it. He breathed in her humanity, her faltering, stuttering pleasure like spice or perfume. He tasted her growing tightness, each bow and bend of her body gifting him with the sound of a barrier breaking away.

Her calls became louder, wilder and he applied himself with more vigor, flicking his tongue in smaller and smaller circles about the epicenter of her quaking desire. Just as she started shivering in intensity, just before she broke the biometric wave between them, he speared his tongue down between her dripping lips, dipping into her core. She gasped like death and indeed, it was the kind of death he wanted from her, for his groan matched against her body with his mouth open and pulled his tongue back up to suckle hard at her clitoris. Screaming, breaking, falling, her orgasm was the sweetest sound he'd ever heard and his hands worked to pull her upright, up against him, up to where he could hold her tightly in the strangest satiation he'd ever experienced. She slid down his wet skin, limp and mewling, trembling as her nipples caught against his chest hair. Her mouth landed against his cheek and still she shivered in the aftershocks of her release.

His own eager sex wanted that, but he resisted, groaning against the side of her head as he held her close, their hearts pounding together rapidly.

After a few full breaths, her mouth moved to kiss his cheek, her teeth coming out to nip at his jaw. Her hands started moving, searching along his body with no seeming purpose. Before he could recognize what she was doing, she started chanting something unintelligible, something that sounded like "amazing" and "fantastic". Surely that wasn't what she'd said, but it sounded like it.

No, that _was_ what she was saying. He confirmed it when her fingernails found a particularly sensitive spot low on his hips and pressed her mouth against his cheek again, groaning out lustily, "God, that was so fucking amazing, you're amazing."

He tensed as she reached a ticklish spot that, in his current state of arousal, translated into making him want to piston up into her waiting warmth with abandon. She seemed to sense this and lifted her hips up slightly, pausing just above his eager cock.

Their eyes met and he swallowed. She pressed her hands against his shoulders and bit her lip, wriggling against his legs like a waiting siren. How could he possibly refrain any more?

He couldn't. He didn't. His left hand grasped his hardened cock and positioned it beneath her and he marveled at the difference between the wet of the water and the wet of her quim. Water felt barely there, but her viscous, wanton wetness was hotter than he'd expected and without a second thought, he let go and pulled her down, deep.

They both cried out, loudly, and sat still for a brief moment, reveling in the perfect feeling of their fit. A few breaths passed between them, but then she started moving. Slowly, at first, twisting and grinding to find that perfect harmony between them that made existence fall away. He lay there, taking in all the sensations of her heat wrapped around him so very, wonderfully tight. His eyes shuttered closed as she started lifting and dropping, shallow and then deep, in a faltering tempo. She whined, a very small sound of frustration, and he opened his eyes just enough to see.

God, Merlin, Cerunnos, what in Hades gave him this beautiful death? The sight of her, laboring over him, her small breasts bouncing in circles and her hair tangled across her face. She was flushed and panting, her hands gliding across his arms and clawing him bit by bit. Something low tightened and pulled within him, begging for his attention, and he answered by grasping her hips, rocking up hard into her body when she dropped down.

Her answer was to throw back her head and gasp as he did it again, again and again. Hard, earthy grunts fell out of his mouth as he pulled into her harder and harder. Nothing else mattered except the clenching and slipping between them, the friction and pull of sex and need. Knees and elbows banged against the plastic of the tub, but neither cared...

Her nails scratched at his chest, across his nipples in surprise and he yelped, followed quickly by a rushing up the back of his legs and down his spine, pulling every thought, every hair, every atom of being into that one small portal between them.

In a tiny pause, a silence, he felt the orgasm tip out of him and he rushed out of the vacuum, exhaling and crying his release into the echoing room. He watched her fall out of her own orgasm, into the magic between them and marveled at the animal sounds breaking the air. That must be them, but his brain was gone, lost for reasons. He couldn't make out what exactly was going on and amazingly, he didn't really care.

All that mattered was that he was sated, and she was warm against him. Nothing else was of concern.

* * *

><p>

_Author's Note:_

_All right, my lovelies! That's it for Chapter 21! I know, too short, but hey, you deserved SOME kind of update, right? And to let you know, I have valid reasons for not wanting to write out this very smoldering scene. I had to work my brain into a state of happiness that I just wasn't feeling._

_I got a new job after much heavy debate (which makes my life so much more busy as a full fledged designer now), my parents divorce finally finalized after a very nasty two year battle, then the holidays, travel, my dog had cancer and I had to put her down after a very short but exhaustive battle, and now my grandmother has been injured in a nasty fall. We don't expect her to come home and of course there are those in my family that are already looking to inheritance (boo!). Oh, and my dad's girlfriend is a cunt who only wants him for his money. I like her daughter, though, poor thing._

_So._

_To all of you that helped me and supported me and my art during my time of need - here on this site, in person, and to all the ladies on the facebook pages I frequent, on tumblr, and on deviantart: I love you! You have brightened my life and I thank you all from the bottom of my heart!_

_I promise you, as I've said before, I will not "drop" this story. I just have to take the time to get it right. I hope I've done so._

_Thanks again! Xoxo Dena_


	22. Chapter 22

Please excuse the retardedness of the previous posting of this chapter. Please see the REAL Chapter 22 below. I hope.

**Chapter 22** (without the meaningful author's notes I spent so much time on that ate)

Severus awoke with a start.

He held still for a few moments, orienting himself to his surroundings. He found it not so difficult to be inside and contentedly relaxed back into the soft pillows. Mentally, he went through the previous night's flight to Hermione's location...and grinned wolfishly at the subsequent reminder of his bath.

Blinking sleep from his eyes, he looked around the predominately peach-colored room and saw no sign of Hermione. A red light caught his attention and he looked to the digital clock on the nightstand, which surprisingly read 11:08.

Apparently, he'd slept straight through the morning. It struck him as a novel experience to sleep so late and to actually have a clock within sight. Something else caught his attention, sitting atop the small brown case of the clock: a folded piece of paper.

He reached over to pull the paper closer and read an apparent missive from his missing lover.

_Severus - _

_Sorry, but we've got no food, so I ran to the store. Be back in a few._

_XoXo_

He looked for any more information but found nothing and wondered how long 'a few' was. After a few moments laying back and enjoying the lush comfort of a proper bed, he decided that 'a few' was turning into more than she'd expected.

After pulling himself out of bed and then out of the loo, he started dragging the covers back into place on the large king bed. Nearly tripping on something dark, he looked down and saw the denims she'd apparently laid out at the foot.

Well, at least he could avail himself of proper clothing, too. The uniform from the horrid place he'd finally escaped from was turning ripe. Thankfully, he saw no part of it and quickly dressed himself in the jeans and a shirt found near it.

He briefly wondered if these were her father's clothes and if so, they were of a similar size. Interesting.

_Well_, he thought to himself, _I might as well familiarize myself with my surroundings_. Slowly making his way back down the hallway that she'd led him down last night, he found himself in a sitting room, complete with electronic equipment and a fireplace. It wasn't terribly cold, but it would have been nice to be able to shoot off a quick 'Incendio' to light a fire. With a pang of longing, he wished dearly for his wand, again. Perhaps he could remember how to start one the muggle way. It wasn't like he was going to Diagon Alley anytime soon.

After a few failed attempts, he finally saw the old wood start to smolder and burn and sat back on his heels to admire his work, gently blowing on the embers to fan the flames. With that accomplished, he started looking around for something to occupy his time. The electronics caught his attention again and he found a rather prolific record collection on the shelf beside a stereo system that included a turntable.

How fascinating. He couldn't remember the last time he'd even attempted to listen to muggle music.

He started flipping through a few album sleeves and saw what he expected of the parents of Hermione Granger. Abba, Lionel Ritchie, Pink Floyd, The Police, Olivia Newton-John...at least he was familiar with the names.

An equally dated album caught his attention with what looked like a cowboy on the front. He pulled it out and read "Michael Martin Murphy". Hmph. No accounting for taste, he supposed. Out of curiosity, he flipped to the back of the sleeve and read what songs this artist played.

One word caught his attention: Wildfire.

His eyes widened a bit at that.

Finding the power switch and lifting the box lid off the turntable, he pulled the vinyl from the sleeve and set the needle to play 'Wildfire'.

The patchy sound of dust being pulled out of the grooves by the felt needle rang loudly into the air and he twitched the volume dial to the left, afraid of being too loud. Guitars pealed into the room and he stood, mesmerized, listening avidly to a song that had long since reminded him of Lily.

Lily. Oh, Merlin, he knew the name and the depth of emotion behind it, now. Such a silly thing, really, to listen to an old ballad about a girl and her horse, but it had always reminded him of Lily...her carefree, impetuous nature...her will to rush headlong into dire situations for the ones she loved...oh, yes. This song had always reminded him of her.

He listened for a few moments to the exposition, and it came to the part where the singer was relating that the dead girl and her horse were coming for him, to take him back with them. For a moment, his heart hurt at the reminder that _that_ had been what he was looking forward to in the Shrieking Shack. He'd been waiting for Lily to come take him home, to heaven or wherever it was that she would be.

That feeling only lasted for a moment, for he heard a door open and close with the jingle of keys and a rustling of paper bags. Turning to see Hermione coming in from what he assumed to be the garage, he was surprised by her frowning, reddened face.

He forgot about the song and moved forward to help her with her burden, unloading a sack from her arms and placing it on the nearest counter. She looked up at him with a sniffle and a confused expression, looking around for the source of music. Once she spied the turntable, her face took on a different expression, one of concern.

She must have heard at least a few lyrics of the song. This was a smart girl, she'd figure out what he was listening to and why. All he had to do was wait.

He wasn't quite sure he wanted to, however. The felt needle scratched against dust again and it was a moment of silent staring at each other before the next song started playing. At once, it was like a balm, bright and breezy, something that he started listening to in order to gauge the tenor of music and was pleasantly surprised. It felt much like what he was starting to think of as the major difference between Lily and Hermione.

Lily had been unobtainable, something to yearn for, something to comfort him in his thoughts of death. Hermione was an adventure yet to be had, and he found he rather liked the thought of that.

Slowly reaching over, he took the second bag from her arms and placed it next to it's twin. When his eyes met hers again, he couldn't help but wonder at her tears. They started coming forth more readily and he watched her shift around him to put some of the groceries away in the refrigerator, avoiding meeting his gaze again.

Her sniffles and tiny little whimpers were quickly picking at his sympathy. As he was helping her unload the bags, and as soon as she finished with the last cold item, he quickly stilled her hands across the island bar and silently willed her to look at him.

They'd been lovers the previous night and with all that she'd done for him in the past few days, surely he could focus on whatever had brought her pain this morning. For the life of him, he couldn't fathom what that might have been, though.

She choked and sobbed in a short burst and looked at him miserably, then asked in a defiant, raw voice, "What."

Well, if she wanted him to be direct... "Why are you crying?"

Her eyes welled up with tears again and just as he thought she might descend into histrionics, she pulled her hands away and started putting the dry goods up in a few cupboards. It was a few moments of slamming cupboard doors before she drew in a shaky breath and started to explain, "I just...I just met someone that knew the family. I guess it's been a while."

He remained silent, knowing there was more to come and he wouldn't be soon disappointed.

She still wouldn't look back at him, but kept talking, "They asked how Mum and Dad are and...and I told them they were fine." She broke off in a whining sob at her last word, dropped a can of something on the counter and buried her face in her hands.

Severus grew worried as a possibility arose. "Hermione," God, how to say this? "Hermione, are your parents dead?"

She spun her mass of curls around to look at him indignantly, "What? No!"

"Then what's all this fuss about?"

"They're...they...oh, shit." At her stumbling over the mild profanity, his eyebrows raised a bit, and he followed her into the sitting room where she pulled the needle off the record and started fiddling with the radio settings. He waited for her to stop making those horrible frequency noises before asking his next question.

"En lieu of playing twenty questions, why don't you tell me what happened?"

After finally settling on a radio station which seemed to have an odd sort of beat playing, she turned around and started slowly explaining about her parents.

"Remember the year the three of us went in search of Voldemort's Horcruxes?"

He briefly nodded and she continued, "Well, I couldn't very well just leave my parents unprotected, and Dumbledore said it was too much to single out just my parents when there were so many other-"

She broke off at his raised eyebrow and frowned at him. Very likely she'd remembered their previous conversation about that old man and how Severus felt about him and his planning.

"Regardless, I couldn't think of any way to protect them except to send them away. They wouldn't agree to it and we got into a huge row about me leaving the magical community. Obviously, I needed to help Harry, so that left me with only one choice."

He remained silent, standing behind the sofa with his full attention on her.

"I...I obliviated them."

He blinked.

"I sent them to Au...Australia."

His brow gathered in an effort to wend his way through the implications of this information, which had been one of his previous suspicions, and the reason for her crying this morning.

Something didn't quite add up, however, so he asked in a careful tone, "What else?"

Her expression was one of entreaty, as if she needed to convince him of something, "I did try to go after them, almost immediately. But Harry still needed my help after the war...I was only gone a few hours at a time and it...oh, God was it tiring after traveling so far. I tried." She started tearing up again. "I really tried."

The situation was starting to form like dark ink in his mind. She was reeking of guilt – it flowed off of her in waves. He knew that feeling very well, thank you. It meant she'd failed at something very important and took the full blame of it.

Well, if her parents weren't dead...then...He shook his head in sadness and gave her his heartfelt sympathy, "You couldn't reverse it, could you?"

Her tightened mouth seemed to be the only thing keeping her from sobbing hard as she shook her head 'no'.

Another light went off in his head as to why she'd be reminded of that when shopping locally. Of course being there would remind her, but also coming across anyone who had known them. "I assume someone asked you about your parents while you were out?"

Her face crumpled and her mouth pulled wide in a rictus of pain. Even then, she answered with a nod. Her body seemed incapable of standing at that revelation, and he rushed over to keep her from falling towards the carpet. Quickly pulling her into his embrace, he shifted them towards the sofa and kept her close, gently shushing her wracking sobs and rocking the both of them back and forth.

With one hand, he held her shoulders and with the other, he started pulling wet strands of humid hair from her face and his. He gently kissed her forehead while murmuring platitudes, "Hermione, it's alright. We'll figure it out. Shh, we'll get it figured out."

Her sobbing increased and her arms went around his neck, "Y-you don't h-have to-o-ooo."

His brow creased in concern and he vaguely registered the radio playing something that sounded like the person was singing 'never meant to cause you trouble...never meant to do you harm...' The music was soothing and sad at the same time, but he wish it wasn't making Hermione cry harder. She was connecting with the song and he needed to derail her, quickly.

He decided to focus on her denial and get her argumentative. That always pulled him out of a downward spiral. "I rather gathered that, but as you've helped me with something similar, it's only fair."

At that, she stopped sobbing and wiped her face on her sleeve. Yeush. Not being able to conjure even a small handkerchief made the watching all the more unbearable, but he withstood it to see why exactly she suddenly stopped crying.

Her eyes looked to his in fierce thought and she asked, "What do you mean? I didn't do anything, in fact I nearly got you killed."

"On the contrary. You did more than most."

"I did not."

Childish, but still furthering his goal of breaking her out of her crying. He rolled his eyes at her and continued, "So I just stood up and walked out of that loony bin, myself, then?"

"Shut up."

He nearly smiled at that and pushed farther. "Well, that's hardly worthy of the only one alive who seems to give a damn about my person."

"I only did it because I failed with my parents. I didn't mean to fall in love with you—oh, shit."

She threw her hand over her mouth and he looked down at her wet face in surprise. He knew he was pushing her and had expected her statement of only coming after him as a means to rectify failing at retrieving her parents. He even understood the need for it. Being wired the same way, it made sense. Her declaration that she'd not meant to fall in love with him, however...that was...amazing. Yes, amazing was a good word for that, as it was amazing that someone, especially this young woman, cared enough about him to fall in love with him.

And she was one of the few people he'd believe it of them, too.

All he could manifest in his wonder was a small, astonished snort and a tiny smile, looking down at her in marvel. "Indeed."

Just as she grumpily mumbled in capitulation, he heard a strange musical tone come out of the radio. It built slow, electronic sounds to a slightly off-key singer with a quiet guitar accompaniment. 'I'm not here, this isn't happening...' Interesting lyrics. The song kept building on its dream-like, reminiscent tones, echoing through the sitting room and he found himself slowly petting Hermione's hair in time.

This sounded like a modern version of The Doors or something...only more...chaotic.

He looked down to her again as she sighed slowly and settled against him, still curled in his arms on the sofa. His free hand slipped up to brush her hair out of her face again, cupping her cheek and using his thumb to wipe away a stray tear.

She looked up at him, breathing a bit heavily, her eyes bright from her tears. He wanted to help her, comfort her, but he was at a loss as to what to say. Thinking back through their conversation, he thought perhaps the best way to help her was to point out that she'd not failed, this time. Cupping her face a bit more firmly, he said her name, urging her to open her eyes again from where they'd closed in comfort against his hand. He smiled at her, but she didn't smile back. Instead, she tried to hide her face in his hand and croaked out, "What."

He pulled it back and once they locked eyes, he gently told her, "You didn't fail with me."

She blinked, apparently taken aback, "What?"

He leaned slightly forward and kissed her forehead, then looked into her eyes again, "You did not fail with me."

Her breathing ramped up as she seemed to realize what he was saying. "I-" She broke off in a few delicate tears and in a raw voice said, "I love you," before crashing her lips to his in a mad, desperate kiss.

His heart filled with heady emotion and he held her face with both hands, kissing her back with growing fervor. Her despairing passion called to something deep inside him, something that answered back with a burning need. Small zaps of desire coursed through his body and, he imagined, through hers as well. Her hands slipped up his neck to mirror his grasp on her face and she shifted to settle herself astride his lap.

Ah, Merlin, he was losing his grasp on reality at the revelation of how well she fit against him. He curled his arms tightly around her body, digging his fingers into her flesh and pushing up hard to meet her more...and more...and more.

A little growl of pleasure escaped her lips, which grew into something primal as she tore her lips from his mouth and descended upon his neck, licking, biting and suckling her way across the tendons there. His cock flared fully to life, hot and ready for her lovely body again, and as he took control and pushed her back into the sofa, he noticed the room go dark and silent.

He broke loose and looked around, alarmed, but she pulled him back, "Forget it, it was only us."

As he looked back down to her, he noticed little blue sparkles teasing the ends of her hair, traveling up his arms. He felt the active, wild magic and smiled, then pressed down into the crucible of her sex. She grinned back at him with heavy eyes and arched up to meet him before she slipped her hand down between their bodies to palm his erection through the thick denim.

He hissed at the contact, the rough denim placket rasping against his cock. "Easy, now."

Her eyes widened and he watched a devilish thought skip across her face. She pushed at his shoulders until he lifted, then with both hands, worked free his tender flesh and cupped it gently as she pushed the jeans off his hips. He threw his head back at the feel of her small, soft hands enveloping his hardness and slowly thrust up into them. Before he could even form a coherent thought, she started pulling his hips forward. Complying without realizing it, he watched as she slipped her slender body down between his legs to lay flat on the sofa beneath him and stopped nearly level with his penis.

His eyes closed tightly as her hot little tongue started dancing around the helmeted ridge. She teased him, pausing here and there to suck gently, then kissing and licking as her hands caressed his hips and buttocks. Everything went blank when she pulled him fully into her mouth, sliding and sucking so wet and so _tight_.

"Fuck!"

She moaned in diabolic pleasure and he looked down to see her darkened eyes glitter up at him in the midday light filtering in through the windows. He watched her watch him as he started thrusting lightly into her mouth. Intensity built between them and he found himself pushing more and more into her mouth. Soon, she was too far beneath him for him to see as he started curling in on himself with the build of his orgasm. Her mouth just kept taking him, sucking and moaning and he... "Ah, God!" He let out a loud yell of release and her little mouth was pulling, sucking harder. It blinded him and he kept keening with the magnitude of his release.

His breathing was labored and he couldn't think one whit, so he readily complied when she pushed his buttocks forward so she could slip out from behind him. He adjusted the dangerous zipper and collapsed on the arm of the seat. After a moment, he felt her drop down and cuddle up next to him, pulling his arm up and around herself.

It was quite some time before his breathing calmed and he opened his eyes to see the afternoon sun streaming in the back windows. Hermione let out a sexy noise and snuggled into his side. As he looked down to her, he recalled that she'd actually swallowed his ejaculate. He couldn't explain why that was something primordially important, but it was. Tiny pinpricks of emotion tightened his eyes – they weren't tears, dammit – and he dropped his head back against the sofa. What was he going to do with her? She was...perfect for him. Everything about her that he'd learned in the past few days had been nothing but engaging to him. How could he repay her for what she'd done platonically, much less for what she was doing out of love?

Several ideas flit through the surface of his mind, and he finally settled on contacting the Longbottom boy to talk about his experience with Hermione's patronus. Perhaps that could do something for her parent's memory charm.

In the meantime, however, he wanted to do something more immediate to show her how much he admired her. With a new direction in mind, his hand began slowly caressing her arm through the sleeve of her blouse. It slipped to her back and tucked into her side, gently rubbing up and down, side to side, exploring the sweet slope of her waistline. She stirred against him, purring into his ribs and dropping her own hand to wrap around his abdomen. He came to her trousers and fingered the waistband, teasing her with playing over and under it in tiny little strokes, then slid his hand more fully to her buttocks to firmly caress the soft flesh there. Gliding his fingers across the hills and valleys of her behind was more engaging than he would have imagined and she started pulling herself, writhing up under his arm to give him more to explore. Her eyes were still closed, but it was obvious she was not asleep with the sounds she was making into the side of his chest, now.

With a devious grin, he palmed one of her nether cheeks and teasingly dropped a finger low in the cleft, feeling the tight fabric of her knickers beneath the woolen trousers. That tightness gave way as he drew deeper between her legs with his questing fingers, to the hot mound it protected. Her cry was music to his ears and he shifted a bit to introduce his other hand in seeking out her breasts.

As he shifted, so did she, and soon she was draped across his body, kissing his mouth with slow sips as one of his hands worked the kernel of her nipple beneath her brassier and the other gripped her cleft tightly, pushing the fabric up into her sex. She called out again as his hands slipped beneath her blouse, cool against the heat of her silken torso. Again, his hand found her breast and played with the lace he found there. Again, his other hand slipped down her spine, but this time, it journeyed beneath her satin knickers, down between the soft globes of her arse, seeking that hot wetness that he was quickly becoming addicted to.

His middle finger dipped into that humid heat and she whimpered in pleasure against his neck. He kissed her neck as he handled her body, pushing her further and further into incoherent pleasure. This was lovely, but it wasn't enough for what he wanted to give her. With that in mind, he started sitting up, pulling his hands free. She protested slightly, but quickly smiled again as he started unbuttoning her shirt.

He mentally sighed and wished he could use magic. He'd have their clothes off with a quick 'divesto'.

At that thought, he remembered the feeling of magic coursing through his body, he even remembered that exact spell...

And looked down to see that they were naked.

She looked at him with happy shock on her face. "How did you do that?"

He grinned and cupped his hands against her warm, naked flesh, pushing her back against the sofa to lay across her again. "Magic."

She laughed, grabbed his face, and kissed him in celebratory joy. He kissed her more deeply, hope taking wing in his heart that loving this woman was definitely good for him.

He stopped and pulled back a bit, staring at her in wonderment, and thought about that particular phrase.

_Loving this woman was definitely good for him._

Yes.

_YES_. His heart beat harder and he dropped down to take her mouth in passionate abandon before she could utter the question forming on her face. _This _is what he wanted. _This_ is where he wanted to be. Right here, with her.

No past, no future, just this moment. Whatever happened out there could happen, but right how, he needed to worship this perfect, beautiful creature that had come to him and brought him back to life.


	23. Chapter 23

Love and Kisses to Perry Downing for her amazingly COPIOUS reviews to nearly every chapter of any SSHG story I've ever written (seriously, you're awesome). I'm working on your gift-fic, dear, and hope to have it up by Christmas! ;)

I also have great news! My fic "The F Word" was nominated for the Harry Potter Fanfic Fan Polls under the Snermione Best Alternate Universe and Best Het Smut! Go check out all the great nominations here: hp fanfic fan poll dot live journal dot com (and if you feel inclined to vote for my fic, then yay! **Grin**)

I also will have some pretty awesome things coming out for the SSHG Holiday Gift fest at sshg (dash) gift fest dot live journal dot com. I don't know when they're posting my -things- but they will start posting the awesome art and fics everyone's made on Monday, December 1st, and carry on through December 20th, with a reveal on Christmas Day! Exciting!

Okay, so that's enough of my rambling. Let's get you guys caught up.

__Up til now: It's been five days in the story and four days between our favorite couple. It is afternoon, heading into evening, and Severus has reignited some of his magic during a passionate revelation between he and Hermione. This is a direct continuation of the last chapter, so you may want to read back at bit to get back into the ____**feels**____. __

_Carry on, dear readers_

* * *

><p><span><strong>Chapter 23<strong>

Hermione wasn't sure exactly what it was that felt so incredibly and increasingly intense with Severus as he lay atop her on the sofa, but she did know she wanted more. Her body quickly began aching for him and her only able response was to writhe her torso and limbs beneath him, pulling him closer and tighter.

He pulled apart and looked down at her with some dark sparkle glittering in his black eyes, some indefinable expression that felt like...felt like...drowning. Her heart sped up and she couldn't help but run out of breath as he stared down at her with a bottomless expression that shocked her.

Tears welled up in her eyes and she slid her hands up to cup the sides of his face, caressing the stubble on his cheeks with her thumbs. "What is it? Are you all right?"

He blinked, slowly, with a shudder that wracked his body and when his eyes opened again, they were black fire. "Hermione...I-" He cut himself off with a crushed look on his face and dropped down to hold her more tightly. "I-"

She searched his face for some explanation for his hesitance, for whatever seemed to be upsetting him. She ran the palm of her hand gently against the heft of his soft, black hair in a gesture of comfort. His response was small, but tremendous. Not quite leaning into her hand, and not even moving, really, he seemed to become electrified by her touch. His face blanked for a brief moment and she could feel the tiny muscles against his scalp shifting against her hand.

His mouth dropped open on a sharp exhalation of air and she barely registered his eyes cracking open again before he took her mouth in a powerful kiss.

This was nothing like last night, or any of the kisses they'd shared the day before or even today. The tears that gathered at the corners of her eyes spilled over at the intense transfer of emotion, even as she wasn't quite sure what it was all about. Their mouths broke apart in a mild keen of passion as their bodies began slipping and shifting to meet more thoroughly. Hermione's nipples were tight, charged, and almost painfully sensitive against the light hair of his chest. Severus' warmth engulfed her, swallowed her, and she wanted nothing more than to feel that sweet friction inside of her. In her breathlessness, she could barely choke out, "Please! Severus, please!"

His dark and gravelly voice moaned out a barely coherent "yes" before taking one of her knees in hand and hitching it up on his elbow. As soon as he locked her down, his kiss and his cock dominated her completely.

Hermione cried out wildly, but the sound was baffled by Severus' mouth. He groaned in response and shifted slightly before starting a heavy, slick rhythm, building up the heat between them with every stroke.

Lights streamed in a kaleidoscope behind her eyelids and she broke her mouth away from his to gasp for air, becoming more and more lightheaded with every deeply-drawn breath. He latched a hand at her shoulder from underneath and increased his pace, driving her harder and harder into the furniture.

Her mind was lost, forgotten in the sea of devastating passion, and she was reduced to shrieking pants of pleasure beneath him. Without warning, her body capitulated to its impending orgasm, causing her to seize up tightly, her channel clenching hard enough to hold his cock still.

She was breathless, stripped bare and completely void of sound.

He, by contrast, pulsed wildly within her and bent down to scream into the cove of her neck and shoulder. Vaguely surprised that such a noise could come from this man, Hermione shuddered in sensation, finally letting go of her intimate clasp. He slipped forward and hard immediately, landing against her cervix, wringing another call from both of them.

Her heart thundered in her chest, but she wrapped her arms around him and held him more tightly, not once letting go, even as the afternoon sun wheeled its way across the living room window.

Some time had passed, and they started shivering, no longer finding comfort in each others naked, passionate warmth as the fireplace dimmed with inattention. Hermione reached for the crocheted afghan draped across the back of the sofa and had to lean up to pull it back over from being dislodged during their afternoon of emotive sex. Just as she dropped back down beneath a very cuddly and possessive Severus, a shadow fell across the window followed by the unmistakable rapid tapping of a post owl.

Severus inhaled and leaned up a bit, looking over to the interruption. "Who the hell would be sending post here?"

She didn't know, but she was starting to get a good idea. "It's probably Harry."

They exchanged a look, recognizing that she still hadn't explained what she'd been doing here in the first place. She grimaced, quickly pecked him on the lips and slid out from underneath him to go let the owl in.

"For Merlin's sake, woman, throw something on before your neighbors see." He quickly tossed the afghan over for her to catch. She grinned back at him and swept it around her shoulders like a cape. She frowned as she accepted the letter from the owl and the bird stayed on the coffee table, waiting for her response.

"Huh. It's from Neville."

She looked to Severus, but his expression was just as baffled as her own. Quickly breaking the seal, she saw her friend's not-so-neat scrawl begging to talk to her, wanting to know what happened with Snape and her Patronus last night. Her brow dipped in confusion again, and she looked up to her new lover with questions brewing in her eyes. "What _did_ happen with my Patronus last night?"

/

Auror Dawlish was in a hurry. Things were happening beyond his ken and growing wildly out of control. After a rushed meeting between he and the Head Auror, it was determined that it would be in the Ministry's best interests to tamp down and quieten any loose threads in this Snape case as quickly as possible. He shook his head and pushed hard on his office door, looking around desperately for his emergency portkey home. What he had to say and do didn't need to be done where any Ministry employee could overhear.

"Ah!" Suddenly remembering where he'd hidden it, he yanked open the bottom drawer to his desk and rummaged under a loose pile of papers for the cork bottle tab. Grasping it firmly, he whispered 'portus' and spun away home.

Thank Merlin he knew the address to call Tonks. He needed to get her on board with this quickly so he could floo his wife. Wiping the sweat from his brow, he spun around and grabbed a handful of floo powder and threw it into the grate, yelling, "Number Twelve Grimmauld Place!"

He kicked the floor pillow closer to the fire and knelt into the green flames, calling out, "Oi, Tonks!"

There was a vague noise of crashing that sounded a bit far off, so she must be in the house. He yelled again, "Tooonnnnks. Tonks!"

The next thumping crash was a little closer and it sounded like someone was coming down the stairs, "Oi! Nymphadora!"

There, that ought to get her attention. He heard a growling scream getting closer.

"Aaaaiioogh! Who the fuck is calling me that name?"

Another voice, probably Lupin, was off in the distance, chastising her, "Dora, please, for Teddy's sake!"

This time, the growl was right on top of him, so he waited for her to make her appearance. He heard a boot skid on the wooden floor before Tonks dropped down onto the floo-call pillow with a very indignant huff, "What! Who is it!"

Dawlish nodded to her, "Hi."

Her bright blue eyes widened in recognition, "Oh, shit. What do you want?" Narrowing her eyes as quickly as they widened, she accused, "Haven't you stirred up enough trouble for us?"

He grinned, "Yeah, um, about that...charges are being dropped."

"What?" She sat back on her heels and scrunched up her face in thought, then challenged him, "...WHY."

He really couldn't blame her being suspicious. The Ministry didn't just drop charges for no reason, especially the ones that had been leveled on the Lupin family. Dawlish shifted on his knees and quickly tried to explain, "Looks like your sheep farm requirement is in order, so no case."

She shook her head in disbelief, "What?"

He tilted his head in confusion, "I said, It looks like-"

"I got that, idiot, but what do you mean by it? What's in order? How?"

Shaking his head, he pointed out, "Listen, Tonks, I don't know how you did it, but you need to just take it. The ownership papers for Old Squib Gideon's farm went through postdated, so I imagine you've got some good Samaritan running around buying up sheep farms for you."

She blinked and her hair toned down from a bright bubble-gum pink to a sort of mousy brown. "Oh." She blinked again, "Wait...huh?"

"Merlin, you daft cow, shut up! I can't hear you denying it!"

"O-Oh!"

"Yeah!" Sweet Circe, the woman could be thick for an Auror.

She recovered and saw that he wasn't done. "Okay. Right. So...what's shakin?"

He nodded in confirmation that this was more than just a social call, "Is Snape still there somewhere?" He even tried looking into the room behind her, but couldn't see anything other than dreary furniture.

"I—um-"

Obviously, she'd taken his word to heart and decided discretion the better part of valor, but he really needed to floo Nadine and get her out of St. Mungos. Cutting to the crux of the issue, he interrupted her, "Don't worry about it, just watch out for him okay?"

"What's going on?"

He shifted on his knees again and winced, "Just between you and me?"

She leaned forward, "Yeah, of course."

Dawlish dropped his voice to a near-whisper, "That Hestry bloke was killed a few minutes ago and the Ministry in a bit of a tizzy right now. If you know where he is, keep him under wraps for a few days until I call you again."

"Oh. Oh! Shite! What happened?"

"Some barmy old woman tried to Avada him but in the chaos, someone else actually _shot_ the bastard."

The shock on her face was almost comical, if it weren't for the subject matter at hand, "Shot?"

He nodded, "Yeah."

"As in, Muggle-style?"

He sighed in frustration and said, "Yeah," like she was not getting the real problem.

Since what she said next was a clear indication that she hadn't, he listened with a little more patience than he felt like he could borrow, "What does that have to do with Snape? Wouldn't that make him in the clear?"

"Yes and no, not necessarily. The perp we apprehended is from the States and under veritaserum questioning, admitted that Hestry was one of many people she was sent to eliminate, but occluded the names too hard. I think that outfit that set the whole 'kill magic' loony bin test site is trying to clean house, which makes Snape a target, as well as all those other patients we re-located to Saint Mungo's."

Tonks sat back on her heels again, nearly falling over on the pillow at her knees. "Go on, then."

He shook his head, "No, really."

She laughed a bit, still disbelieving, "That's like from a show or something. That's not real."

Dawlish eyed his former colleague with a deadpan glare, "Call it what you like, but if you know where he is, tell him to stay hidden until we can round up everyone involved in this shite."

He could see her finally take him at his word and breathe out, "Merlin..."

"Yeah"

With a sharp nod from her, he could see the old Auror training snap into place, "Alright. Thanks, Dawlish."

In relief, he joked back, "You owe _me_, now."

She shook her head and sighed, "Fine, yeah, I owe you." She finished her flippant remark with a wink and he knew she'd take care of things from her end. He quickly backed out of the floor so he could call his wife home.

(end chapter)

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><p>AN: Hmm. I'm not sure I like the second half of this, but take it as a vehicle chapter. Also, this was rather short, but *shrugs* it's an update. As for what I'm sure many of you are going to say about Dawlish calling in to protect Snape before calling his wife, I'm thinking that the danger to his wife isn't as dire as the evident danger to Snape. After all, we don't even know where in St. Mungo's Nadine works ;) Anyway, suspend disbelief for a few moments and I'm working on a few things to try and get this behemoth done by Valentine's. We'll see.

I do hope to have at least one more chapter out before Christmas, so wish me luck! Thank you, EVERYONE for reading and reviewing. If I haven't responded to your reviews, you have my apologies and my very heartfelt gratitude.

Remember, go vote for your favorite fic on the Harry Potter Fanfic Fan Polls at Live Journal, and on Monday, check out the great new stuff that'll be hitting the internet for the SSHG Gift Fest!

Xoxo Dena


	24. Chapter 24

Surprise! I'm back for a quickie. This is the shortest chapter I've ever written, but I really feel that this needs to stand alone. Lots of Feels.

Love you all! (sniffle)

**Chapter 24**

Tonks backed away from the fireplace slowly, her mind in a whirl. She clambered to her feet and pensively made her way through the parlor doors, thinking through all the information that had just been given to her. In a flash, she understood who it would have been that was rich enough and sympathetic enough to have just bought them a sheep farm out of nowhere. Remus and Harry had been fighting over that very thing before their fight with Hermione.

Her eyes widened as she realized that where ever Hermione was, Severus was likely to follow. Those two had been inseparable during his stay here and there was something...interesting going on with the way Hermione was being so protective of him. She glanced at the small clock on the mantel that started chiming St. Michael's on the hour and noticed how late it was getting. Damn. If she wanted to check out Hermione's parent's address before dark, she needed to get going. Moving to the bottom of the stairs, she called up, "Harry? Remus! Come down here please!"

Only one set of footsteps banged down the stairs and she watched her husband approach her with a wary expression, "Dora, what's wrong? Who was at the floo?"

She looked up the stairs and waited to see Harry, but when he didn't show, she asked the obvious, "Where's Harry?"

"He left earlier, why?"

She shook her head and started pulling on her scarf from the hall tree. "Well, for one thing, we owe Harry big time. You're off the hook since you now meet your sheep farm requirement."

"What?" Remus hissed and looked somewhere between confused and upset. She couldn't blame him, they'd all agreed that it was a ridiculous expense for Harry to take on buying them something that they could most likely fight in a court of law. She grimaced and acknowledged that something must have changed and the little impulsive shit had gone and done it behind their backs.

She pulled on a cardigan and reached for her overcoat. "Yeah, I know."

He scrubbed a hand across his face and growled a little. She was suddenly thankful that the moon had already passed, but she understood his frustration at the same time. Remus shook his head and moaned, "Oh, Merlin, I should have known he was up to something when Ginny came over last night."

Her eyebrows snapped together, "When was she here?" And why had no one seen fit to tell her?

He looked to her apologetically. "Late. I didn't want to wake you so I took Teddy downstairs and saw them in the Library."

She narrowed her eyes, "She didn't say why she was here?"

He shook his head, "No. They looked pretty intense, so I didn't want to interrupt. You know what they've been like."

That was certainly the truth, "Pfft. Yeah." Harry and Ginny had been hot and cold for months and one usually didn't want to get in the middle of one of their intense discussions. Bat-Bogey Hexes and Tarantallegras everywhere...

Remus interrupted her thoughts with a thoughtful tone, "I did overhear Ginny say something about Draco that was odd, though."

Draco? What was Ginny talking about Draco for? Her mum told her there was something off about her cousin, but wouldn't say what and he'd not been really seen in public since the war, but that wasn't very strange. A lot of people took to their houses after the war. She looked to her husband and asked, "What was that?"

He gave her a somewhat-pained look and, after a moment, took a shaky breath before replying, "She said, 'He's just like they were, Remus and Tonks.'"

They kept each others gaze for a few intense moments before Tonks shuddered a sigh, "Oh."

It was a few more moments and she was starting to become a bit afraid that they would...or wouldn't...talk about what had happened. They'd been avoiding the issue for well over a year, and it was an obvious thing that neither of them wanted to talk about. Except, maybe...

Remus blinked and took a deep breath. He exhaled loudly and looked to shore up his courage before starting, "Dora, I-"

A chill went down her spine and she waited with bated breath, aching for them to talk about this forbidden subject. When he didn't continue, she prompted, "Yes?"

His hand reached up to rub at the nape of his neck as he looked up at her with an unsure expression, "I've been wondering...about after the battle. When we first came here."

She saw he was having trouble. Hell, they'd both kept mum about this for so long, how did one start talking about it? Quickly donning her affability like the coat she was slowly fastening up, she asked nonchalantly, "Oh...um, yeah? What about it?"

He relaxed a bit, as she knew he would, and continued, "Do you...do you remember...any of it?"

She paused in fastening up the buttons on her Muggle coat and looked at the floor for a few moments. How should she start? Where does one start talking about a subject that was, until recently, buried so deep as to not even merit mention for over a year?

Looking up to her husband and thinking back, she bit her lip to think over what he was asking. He wanted to know if she remembered...what exactly? Was he saying that he didn't remember? Or that he thought perhaps she didn't and he did? She blew out a sigh and glanced up at him before resuming buttoning the buttons on her coat.

It hit her with a certainty that there was no way to find out without just spitting out what she did remember. "Well..." She finished her buttons and glanced at him again, then quickly reached for her gloves. "Kind of...it was really kind of lights out for me for a while." No sense mentioning the bit about her dad. That was still frightening, even for her. "I really only remember Teddy getting mad at me and throwing his food. It was like, when the food hit me, there was a kind of jolt that I dunno, sort of flipped a light on, inside."

She slowly looked back up to him and saw something like a light of recognition dawning in his beautiful brown eyes. Hmm. Her heart sped up a bit and she struggled to ask him the next obvious question, "What do you remember?"

His eyes searched hers for a moment before he reached over to pull her into an embrace. She could smell his aftershave of mint and citrus with an undertone of Teddy's talcum powder. She smiled and held him close, tucking her face into his neck to breath more of the comforting scent. After some time of silence, Remus spoke into her hair in a rough, lost, hesitant tone, "Dark. It was all dark there for a while. It was like I was here, but my mind was somewhere else...waiting..."

Tears welled up in her eyes and she could feel the heat of her emotion filling her face. She held him closer, bravely asking, "For what?"

His chest shuddered with a shaky breath and he held her more tightly against him. "You," was the rough answer he gave as tears leaked out her eyes and onto his collar. "I remember when your lights came on, as you put it. I was waiting for that."

At his raw confession, she finally broke down and sobbed into his shoulder, pulling at the shirt on his back, feeling all the pent up and hidden emotions from the memory of losing him. Every inhalation of breath was choked out in another spate of tears and she rubbed her face back into his neck when she realized she could hear him weeping, too. What had happened to them? Not that she was complaining that they were alive and together, but she remembered...

"Remus?"

She wondered if he'd heard her, muffled as she was through tears and his jumper, but he responded with a watery, "Mmm?"

Hiccuping a determined breath and pulling her head back to look up at him, she started shaking as she asked him, "You know what else I remember?"

This was going to be hard, but they needed to acknowledge it before they could move on. This confession was something that would change them, but from what they were both finally admitting to each other, this was important to do. Preferably now, while they had the channel of topic open.

He brushed a hand over her hair to push the wet strands out of her eyes and cradled her head with the palm. She could see the tear tracks on his face but he gave her a small smile and asked, "What's that, love?"

This was it. She needed to say it, and she was sure he would say it, too. Then she could move on, then she could do the rest of her duty tonight, but now...now, she needed this said. She looked to her husband and put all the fear and confusion she could into the one word that needed to be spoken between them:

"Dying."

And somewhere in the midst of their mutual weeping and clinging embrace, she thought he might have said, "Me, too."

(end chapter)

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><p>wow. Okay, sorry, I know it's off the main characters, but this bit came to me in a rush and I really wanted to get it out. We will return with our regularly scheduled characters in the next chapter (that will not be out as soon as this one was, but hopefully soon).<p>

If you're interested, the main driving creative force behind this chapter was this piece of music:

"_Fratres for Strings and Percussion" composed by Arvo Pärt, performed by the Taipola Sinfonietta in 2010, featuring Juho Vartiainen & Jean Jeacques Kantorow_


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